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THE 


D I E G E S I S ; 

BEING 

A DISCOVERY 

OF THE 

ORIGIN, EVIDENCES, AND EARLY HISTORY OF 


CHRISTIANITY, 


NEVER YET BEFORE OR ELSEWHERE SO FULLY AND FAITHFULLY 
< SET FORTH. 

L Id I 


BY THE REV. ROBERT TAYLOR, A. B. & M. R. C. S. 

u 


<J>iZo(io(pia tie Ttjv ptv xara tpvoiv , to fiacJilsv, trtaivsi xou aonatov, tijv St 
dtoxkvrstv (paoxovoav nuQatTov. —Euphrates Philosph. ad Vespasian. Imp. quoad 
Apellonii Tyance Miracula: citante Lardnero. Vol. IV. p. 261. 


BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY J. P. MENDUM. 

1883. 


3ENO YOUR ORDERS TO 

C.P.FARRELL, 

BOOKSELLER, 

400 FIFTfl AVE., 


NEW YORK. 







BU775 

TT'i'o 

1223 



T ransfer 

Engineers School Liby. 
June 29,1931 



DEDICATION. 


.TO THE 

MASTER, FELLOWS, AND TUTORS OF 
ST. JOHN’S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 

REVEREND AND LEARNED SIRS, 

1$ interesting remembrance of the high sense your 
learned body were pleased to express of my successfu. 
studies, when I received your general vote of thanks, 
delivered to me by the Master himself, the late Dr. 
Craven, for the honour you were pleased to consider 
that my poor talents and application, in statu pupillari , 
had conferred on our College, which holds such distin¬ 
guished rank in the most distinguished University in the 
world ; I very respectfully dedicate the Diegesis, the 
employment of my many solitary hours in an unjust 
imprisonment, incurred in the most glorious cause that 
ever called virtue to act, or fortitude to suffer. You 
will appreciate (far beyond any wish of mine that you 
should seem to appreciate) the merits of this work. Your 
assistance for the perfecting of future editions, by ani- 
nadversion on any errors which might have crept into 


IV 


DEDICATION 


the first; and the feeling with respect to it, which I 
cannot but anticipate, though it may never be expressed ; 
will amply gratify an ambition whose undivided aim was 
to set forth truth, and nothing else but truth. 

ROBERT TAYLOR, A. B. 


O&knum Gaol, Feb. 19, 1829 


PRISONER. 


CONTENTS 


PROLEGOMENA. Page 

Importance of the subject....Criminality of indifference....Dr. Whitby’s 
last thoughts, &c. 1 

CHAP. I.—Definitions....Time, Place, Circumstances, Identity of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, necessary to be established....Geography of Palestine 4 

CHAP. II.—The Christian and Pagan Creeds collated....The Apostle’s 
Creed, a Forgery....Inference that it is a Pagan document applied to Christian 
purposes....Necessity of examining the pretences of all writings that lay claim 
to Canonical authority 9 


CHAP. III.—State of the Heathen World....Heathenism to be judged as 
Christians would wish their own religion to be judged....The Pacific Age.... 

The genius of Paganism most tolerant and philosophical....Vast difference 
between the philosophers and the vulgar....The philosophers were Deists....The 
vulgar infinitely credulous II 

CHAP. IV.—The state of the Jews....The Jews the grand exception to 
the prevalence of universal toleration....They plagiarized Pagan fables into 
their pretended divine theology....Were as gross idolaters as the Heathens.... 
Truth of Judaism not essential to the truth of Christianity....The Pharisees.... 

The Sadducees....The Cabbala....The Jews had no notion of the immortality 
of the soul ; while the Heathens had more practical faith therein, than any 
Christians of the present day 20 

CHAP. V.—State of Philosophy....A general prevailing debility of the 
human understanding....Vitiation of morals....Destruction of documents....Max¬ 
ims of deceiving die vulgar, and perpetuating ignorance, approved by St. 
Paul....King’s College, London....Gnosticism....Systems of philosophy 30 

CHAP. VI.—Admissions of Christian writers....Deficiency of evidence.... 
Christians before the Christian era....Christian frauds....Christian scriptures not 
in the hands of the laity....Christianity and Paganism hardly distinguishable.... 
Miraculous powers, dreams, visions, charms, spells....Name of Jesus a spell 38 

CHAP. VII.—Of the Essenes or Therapeuts....Differences of opinion with 
respect to them....Every thing of Christianity is of Egyptian origin....Apostolic 
and Apotactic monks....The Therapeuts were Christians before the Augustan 
era....Eclectics....The forgery of the gospel ascribed to mongrel Jews 58 

CHAP. VIII.—The Christian scriptures, doctrines, discipline and ecclesi¬ 
astical polity, long anterior to the period assigned as that of the birth of 
Christ....Recapitulation....An original translation of the famous 16th chapter 
of the 2nd book of Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History 66 

CHAP. IX.—Of Philo and his testimony....Sum of his admissions 74 

CHAP. X.—Corollaries....Eusebius....Sufficient guarantee for the text of 
Philo....Conflicting opinions....Severe sarcasm of Gibbon....The demonstration 
absolute that the monks of Egypt were the authors of the gospels... Mr. 
l'vanson’s perplexities relieved....Alexandria the cradle of Christianity....Its 
slow progress....Episcopal insolence of Dionysius....St. Mark, a monk 75 




VI 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

CHAP. XI.—Corroborations of the evidence arising from the admissions 
of Eusebius, in the New Testament itself 86 

CHAP. XII.—References to the monkish or Therapeutan doctrines to be 
traced in the New Testament... John the Baptist, a monk....Monkish rules in 
the New Testament....Apoilos, a Therapeut....Vagabond Jews....The New 
Testament entirely allegorical....The English translation of it, Protestantizes 

in order to keep its monkish origin out of sight_iSt. Paul’s account of the 

resurrection wholly different from that of the Evangelists....The conclusion 90 

CHAP. XIII.—On the claims of the scriptures of the New Testament to 
be considered as genuine and authentic....Preliminary....The authenticity of 
St. Paul’s epistles, and of so much of his history (miracles excepted) as is 
contained in the Acts of the Apostles, affords no presumption in favour of the 
Canonical gospels....The canon of the New Testament not settled even so late 
as the middle of the sixth century....Mode of argument to be observed in this 
Di EGESIS 109 

CHAP. XIV’’.—Canons of criticism....Data of criticism to be applied in 
judging the comparative claims of the apocryphal and canonical gospels.... 
Corollaries....Dr. Eardner’s table of times and places 113 

CHAP. XV.—Of the four gospels in general....Confession of the forgery 
of the gospels, by Eaustus....Twenty objections to be surmounted....Order for 
a general alteration of the gospels by Anastasius....Alterations by Lanfranc 114 

CHAP XVI.—Of the origin of our three first canonical gospels....The 
great plagiarism gradually discovered....Le CJerc....Dr. Sender....Lessing’s 
hypothesis, Niemeyer’s, Halfeld’s, Beausobre’s, Bishop Marsh’s....The Die- 
gesis ...The Gnomologue 119 

CHAP. XVII.—Of St. John’s gospel in particular....Dr. Semler’s hypo- 
thesis....Evanson....Bretschneider....l' alsehood of gospel geography, of gospel 
dates, of gospel statistics, of gospel phraseology 130 

CHAP. XVIII.—Ultimate result....The monks of Egypt, the fabricators of 
the whole Christian system 136 

CHAP. XIX.—Resemblances of the Pagan and Christian theology.. . 
Augury and bishops....iEsculapius....Hercules....Adonis....Parallel passages in 
Cicero and the New Testament....Royal priests....Subordinate clergy....Priests 
of Cybele....Parasites or domestic chaplains....Conversion from Paganism to 
Christianity brought about entirely by a transfer of property 139 

CHAP. XX.—/Esculapius and Jesus Christ, the same figment of imagina¬ 
tion....Miracles of iEsculapius better authenticated than those of Jesus.... 
^Esculapius distinguished by the very epithets afterwards ascribed to Jesus 148 

CHAP. XXI.—Hercules and Jesus Christ, the same figment of imagina¬ 
tion....Dr. Parkhurst’s anger at those who doubt that Hercules was a divinely 
intended type of Jesus Christ....Pagan form of swearing....Superior moral 
virtue of Turks 154 

CHAP. XXII.—Adonis....Ridiculous literal renderings of the Psalms.... 
Jehovah and Adonis used indifferently as common names of the same deity.... 
Words of our Easter hymn used at the festival of the Adonia 158 

CHAP. XXIII.—The mystical sacrifice of the Phoenicians....A draft of the 
whole Christian system....Archbishop Magee, one of the Author’s persecutors 168 

CHAP. XXIV.—Chrishna, of the Brahmins, the original Jesus Christ.... 

The absolute identity of Chrishna and Christ, triumphant in the complete 
overthrow of all the attempts of Drs. Bentley and Smith, Beard, and others 
to disprove it....Dishonest engagement of Christian Missionaries 168 

CHAP. XXV.—Apollo, Jesus Christ the Egyptian version of the Indian 
Christ ’ 180 


C0NTENT3. 


fa 


VI1 


CHAP. XXVI.—Mercury, Jesus Christ....The Word, Jesus Christ....Ame- 
.ius proves their identity 183 

CHAP. XXVII.—Bacchus, Jesus Christ....His name Yes....Bacchus ad¬ 
dressed in the very words of Christian worship....A personification of the 
Sun....J he Bacchanalia identical with Christian sanctification 186 

CHAP. XXVIII.—Prometheus, Jesus Christ....The Grecian version of 
the Indian Chrishna, identical with the Christian god. Providence....The 
preternatural darkness at the Crucifixion a palpable falsehood, derived from 
yEschylus’s tragedy of Prometheus Bound 191 

CHAP. XXIX.—The Sign of the Cross entirely Pagan... .Found in the 
temple of the god Serapis....The high priests of Serapis known and distin¬ 
guished by the title of Bishops of'Christ 198 

CHAP. XXX.—The Tauribolia....The whole theory and practice of the 
Christian doctrine of Regeneration 207 

CHAP. XXXI.—Baptism....The Baptists an effeminate and debauched 
order of Pagan priests....Astrological character of John the Baptist....Of St. 
Thomas....The New Testament entirely allegorical 208 

CHAP. XXXII.—The Eleusinian Mysteries entirely the same as the 
Christian Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper....Bacchus, as the Sun, the common 
object of worship in both 212 

CHAP. XXXIIT.—Pythagoras, the type of the human or man-Jesus.... 

The Pythagorean Metempsychosis the best system of supernaturalism 217 

CHAP. XXXIV.—Archbishop Tillotson’s Confession of the identity of 
Christianity and Paganism 224 


CHAP. XXXV.—Resemblance of Pagan and Christian forms of worship 
....The White Surplice....The Baptismal Font....Nundination and Infant Bap¬ 
tism....The old stories of the ancient Paganism adopted into Christianity.... 

The Pantheon....Similar inscriptions in Pagan Temples and Christian Church¬ 
es....Saints and Martyrs that never existed 229 

CHAP. XXXVI.—Specimens of Pagan piety....The first Orphic Hymn to 
Prathyraea....Hymn to Diana....The Creed and Golden Verses of Pythagoras.... 

The Morals of Confucius 239 

CHAP. XXXVII.—Charges brought against Christianity by its early 
adversaries, and the Christian manner of answering those charges....The 
Doctrine of Manes and his History....Demonstration that no such person as 
Jesus Christ ever existed....Admission of Bishop Herbert Marsh....Admissions 
to the same effect of the early Fathers 244 

CHAP. XXXVIII.—Christian Evidences adduced from Christian Writ¬ 
ings....Dorotheus’ Lives of the Apostles....Origin of the Acts of the Apostles, 
Cephas, Judas, Mark, Luke, Paul....That there is no difference between the 
Popish legends and the canonical Acts of the Apostles....That no such persons 
as the twelve Apostles ever existed 260 

CHAP. XXXIX.—The Arguments of Martyrdom....That Martyrdom is 
not the kind of evidence which we have a right to expect....The impropriety 
of the argument as it respects the character of God....The impropriety of the 
argument as it respects the character of Man....That the argument of martyr¬ 
dom is absolutely not true....Specimens of Martyrology 274 

CHAP. XL.—The Apostolic Fathers....St. Barnabas, St. Clement, St. 
Hermas, St. Polycarp, St. Ignatius....Correspondence of Ignatius with the 
'Virgin Mary....Result....Perfect Parallel of Pagan and Christian Mysteries 287 

CHAP. XLI.—The Fathers of the Second Century....Papias Quadratus, 
Aristides, Hegesippus, Justin Martyr, Melito, St. Irenseus, Pantaenus, Clemens, 
Alexandrinus, Tertullian 304 


VU1 


CONTENTS. 


CHAP. XLII.—The Fathers of the Third Century....Origen....The dolorous 
lamentation of Origen....His answer to Celsus, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. 
Cyprian. 328 

CHAP. XLIII.—The Fathers of the Fourth Century....Constantine the 
Great....Motives of his Conversion....The Evidences of Christianity as they 
appeared to Constantine. His oration to the clergy....Eusebius, the great 
Ecclesiastical Historian....The holy dog. 345 

CHAP. XLIV.—Testimony of Heretics, who denied Christ’s humanity.... 
Cerdon, Marcion, Leucius, Apelles, Faustus....Who denied Christ’s divinity.... 

Who denied Christ’s Crucifixion....Who denied Christ’s Resurrection 364 

CHAP. XLV.—The whole of the external evidence of the Christian Reli¬ 
gion....The testimony of Lucian, of Phlegon....The passage of Macrobius.... 
Publius Lentulas....The Veronica handkerchief....The testimony of Pilate....A 
coincident passage from Arnobius....The passage of Josephus....The celebrated 
inscription to Nero....Similar Inscriptions....Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny, Epicte¬ 
tus, Plutarch, Juvenal, Emp. Adrian, Emp. Aurelius Antoninus, Martial, Apu- 
eius, Lucian....List of Ancient writers. , 375 

APPENDIX.—Containing an account of the various known M.S. copies of 
the New Testament, and the source of the present received copy....Various 
versions, Greek editions, and translations, of the New Testament....Spurious 
passages in ditto....False representations....Abbreviations....Dates of the reigns 
of the Roman Emperors....Names and order of the succession of the Christian 
fathers and heretics....Ecclesiastical Historians and councils....Sketch of the 
general councils....Present ecclesiastical revenues....Numerical extent of Christi¬ 
anity....Authorities adduced in this Diegesis....Texts of Su-ipture brought into 
illustration in this Diegesis. 416 


PROLEGOMENA 


ON all hands ’tis admitted that the Christian religion is 
matter of most serious importance : it is so, if it be truth, 
because in that truth a law of faith and conduct measuring 
out to us a propriety of sentiment and action, which would 
otherwise not be incumbent upon us, is propounded to 
our observance in this life ; and eternal consequences of 
happiness or of misery, are at issue upon our observance 
or neglect of that law. 

To deny to the Christian religion such a degree of im¬ 
portance, is not*only to launch the keenest sarcasm against 
its whole apparatus of supernatural phenomena, but is 
virtually to withdraw its claims and pretensions alto¬ 
gether. For if men, after having received a divine reve¬ 
lation, are brought to know no more than what they knew 
before, nor are obliged to do any thing which other¬ 
wise they would not have been equally obliged to do ; 
nor have any other consequences of their conduct to hope 
or fear, than otherwise would have been equally to be 
hoped or feared ; then doth the divine revelation reveal 
nothing, and all the pretence thereto, is driven into an 
admission of being a misuse of language. On the other 
hand, the Christian religion is of scarce less importance, 
if it be false ; because, no wise and good man could pos¬ 
sibly be indifferent or unconcerned to the prevalence of 
an extensive and general delusion. No good and amiable 
heart could for a moment think of yielding its assent to so 
monstrous an idea, as the supposition that error could 
possibly be useful, that imposture could be beneficial, 
that the heart could be set right by setting the under¬ 
standing wrong, that men were to be made rational by 
being deceived, and rendered just and virtuous by cre¬ 
dulity and ignorance. 

To be in error one’s self, is a misfortune ; and if it be 
such an error as mightily affects our peace of mind, it is 
a very grievous misfortune ; to be the cause of error to 
others, either by deceiving them ourselves, or by conniv¬ 
ance, and furtherance of the councils and machinations 
by which we see that they arc deceived, is a crime ; it is 
a most cruel triumph over nature’s weakness, a most 
2 


2 


PROLEGOMENA. 


barbarous wrong done to our brother man ; it is the kind 
of wrong which we should most justly and keenly resent, 
could we be sensible of its being put upon ourselves. 

A Nero playing upon his harp, in view of a city in 
flames, is a less frightful picture than that of the soli¬ 
tary philosopher basking in the serenity of his own 
speculations, but indifferent to the ignorance he could 
remove, the error he could correct, or the misery he could 
relieve. 

As then there is no falsehood more apparently false, 
and more morally mischievous, than to suppose that error 
can be useful, and delusion conducive to happiness and 
virtue : so, there can be no place for the medium or al¬ 
ternative of indifference between the truth or falsehood of 
the Christian religion. Every argument that could show 
it to be a blessing to mankind, being true, must in like 
degree tend to demonstrate it to be a curse*and a mischief, 
being false. 

If it be true, there can be no doubt that God, its all wise 
and benevolent author, must have given to it such suf¬ 
ficient evidence and proofs of its truth, that every crea¬ 
ture whom he hath endued with rational faculties, upon 
the honest and conscientious exercise of those faculties, 
must be able to arrive at a perfect and satisfactory con¬ 
viction. To suppose that there either i#, or by any pos¬ 
sibility could be, a natural disinclination or repugnancy 
in man’s mind, to receive the truths of revelation, is “to 
charge God foolishly as if, when he had the making of 
man’s mind, and the making of his revelation also, he 
had not known how to adapt the one to the other ; nor 
is it less than to open the door to every conceivable ab¬ 
surdity and imposture, and to give to the very grossness 
and palpability of falsehood, the advantage over evidence, 
truth, and reason. If we are to conceive that any thing 
may be the more likely to be true, in proportion to its ap¬ 
pearing more palpably and demonstrably false, and that 
God can possibly have intended us to embrace that , which 
he has so constituted our minds, that they must naturally 
suspect and dislike it, why so, then, all principles and 
tests of truth and evidence are abolished at once ; we may 
as well take poison for our food, and rush on what our 
nature shudders at, for safety. 

To suppose that belief or unbelief can cither ne a virtue 
or a crime, or any man morally belter or wmv>e for belief 
or unbelief, is to assume that .nan has a facu'ty which 


PROLEGOMENA. 


3 


we see and feel that he has not ;* to wit,—a power of 
making himself believe, of being convinced when he is 
not convinced, and not convinced when he is: which is a 
being and not being at the same time, the sheer end of 
“all discourse of reason.” 

To suppose that a suitable state of mind, and certain 
previous dispositions of meekness, humility, and teacha¬ 
bleness are necessary to fit us for the reception of divine 
truth, as the soil must be prepared to receive the seed, 
is in like manner to argue preposterously, and to open the 
door to the reception of falsehood as well as of truth ; as 
the prepared ground will fertilize the tares as prolifically 
as die wheat, and is indifferent to either. 

And in proportion as the state of mind so supposed to 
be necessary, is supposed to be an easily yielding, readily 
consenting, and feebly resisting state; the more facile is 
it to the practices of imposture and cunning, and the less 
worthy conquest of evidence and reason. The property 
of truth is not, surely, to wait till men are in right frames 
of mind to receive it, but to find them wrong, and to set 
them right; to find them ignorant and to make them wise; 
not created by the mind, but itself the mind’s creator ; it 
is the sovereign that ascends the throne, and not the 
throne that nnjkes the sovereign ; where it reigns not, 
right dispositions cannot be found, and where it reigns, 
they cannot be wanting. 

The highest honour w'e can pay to truth, is to show our 
confidence in it, and our dtsire to have it sifted and ana¬ 
lyzed, by how rough a process soever ; as being well as¬ 
sured that it is that alone that can abide all tests, and which, 
like the genuine gold, will come out all the purer from the 
fiercer fire 

While there are bad hearted men in the world, and 
those who wish to make falsehood pass for truth, they 
will ever discover themselves and their counsel, by their 
ifopat.it nee cf contradiction, their hatred of those who 
differ from them, their wish to suppress inquiry, and 
tiic.h bitter resentment, when what they call truth, has not 
been handled with the delicacy and niceness, which it was 
never any thing else but falsehood that required or 
needed. 

All the mighty question now before us requires, is, at¬ 
tention and ability ; without any presentiment, prejudica- 

* This thought is Dr. Whitby’s ; who, after publishing his voluminous Com¬ 
mentary on th<* Scriptures, published this among his Last Thoughts.” 


4 


DEFINITIONS. 


tion, or prepossession whatever ; but with a perfect and 
equal willingness to come to such conclusion as the evi¬ 
dence of moral demonstration shall offer to our conviction, 
and to be guided only by such canons or rules of evidence 
as determine our convictions with respect to all other 
questions. 


CHAPTER I. 

DEFINITIONS. 

By the Christian religion, is to be understood the whole 
system of theology found in the Bible, as consisting of 
the two volumes of the Old and New Testament; and as 
that system now is, and generally has been understood, 
by the many, or general body of that large community of 
persons professing and calling themselves Christians. 

That this system of theology might not be confounded 
with previously existing pretences to divine revelation, 
or held to be a mere enthusiasm or conceit of imagina¬ 
tion, its best and ablest advocates challenge for it, his¬ 
torical data , and afTect to trace it up to its origination in 
time, place, and circumstance, as all other historical facts 
may be traced. 

Upon this ground, the doctrines become facts, and we 
are no longer called on to believe, but to investigate and 
examine. We are permitted, fearlessly to apply the rules 
of criticism and evidence, by which we measure the credi¬ 
bility of all other facts. 

The time assigned as that of the historical origination 
of Christianity, is, the three or four first centuries of the 
prevalence and notoriety of a system of theology under 
that name ; reckoning from the reign of the Roman Em¬ 
peror Augustus, to its ultimate and complete establishment 
under Constantine the Great. 

Any continuance of its history after this time, is 
unnecessary to the purpose of an investigation of its 
evidences ; as any proof of its existence before this time, 
would certainly be fatal to the origination challenged 
for it. 

The place assigned as that of the historical origination 
of this religion, is, the obscure ami remote province of 
Judea, which is about equal in extent of territory to the 


DEFINITIONS. 


5 


principality of Wales, being one hundred and sixty miles 
in length, from Dan to Beersheba, and forty six miles in 
breadth, from Joppa to Bethlehem, between 35 and 36 
degrees east longitude from Greenwich, and between 31 
and 33 degrees north latitude, in nearest coasting upon 
the eastern extremity of the Mediterranean sea, and in the 
neighbourhood of Egypt, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Syria.* 

The circumstances assigned as those of the historical 
basis of this religion, are, that in the reigns of the Roman 
Emperors Augustas and Tiberias, and in the province of 
Judea, a Jew, of the lower order of that lowest and most 
barbarous of all subjects of the Roman empire, arose 
into notoriety among his countrymen, from the circum¬ 
stance of leaving his ordinary avocation as a labouring 
mechanic, and travelling on foot from village to village in 
that little province, affecting to cure diseases ; that he 
preached the doctrines, or some such, as are ascribed to 
him in the New Testament ; and that he gave himself out 
to be some extraordinary personage : but failing in his 
attempt to gain popularity, he was convicted as a male¬ 
factor, and publicly executed, under the presidency and 
authority of the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate. This 
extraordinary person was called Jesus or Joshua, a name 
of ordinary occurrence among the Jewish clan ; and 
from the place of his nativity, or of his more general 
residence, he is designated as Jesus of Nazareth : the 
obscurity of his parentage, or his equivocal legitimacy 
having left him without any name or designation of his 
family or descent.f 

These are circumstances which fall entirely within the 
scale of rational probability, and draw for no more than an 
ordinary and indifferent testimony of history, to command 
the mind’s assent. The mere relation of any historian, 
living near enough to the time supposed, to guarantee the 
probability of his competent information on the subject, 
would have been entitled to our acquiescence. We could 
have had no reason to deny or to doubt, what such an 
historian could have had no motive to feign or to exag- 

* “ The geography of Palestine lies in a narrow compass. It comprises a tract 
of country of nearly 200 miles in length, in its full extent, from the river of Egypt 
south of Gaza to the furthest bounds towards Damascus, and perhaps of more than 
100 in breadth, including Perea, from the Mediterranean eastward to the deseil 
Arabia.”— El.sl.ey. 

t Being, as ivas supposed , the son of Joseph, Luke iv. 23. It was no mat 
ter of supposition that his mother had yielded to the embraces of "OJI Gabriel ; 
that is, literally, the man of God, Luke i. 38. 

2 * 


6 


DEFINITIONS. 


derate. The proof even to demonstration, of these cir¬ 
cumstances, would constitute no step or advance towards 
the proof of the truth of the Christian religion ; while the 
absence of a sufficient degree of evidence to render even 
these circumstances unquestionable, must, a foi'tiori , be 
fatal to the credibility of the still less credible circum¬ 
stances founded upon them. 

If there be no absolute certainty that such a man ex¬ 
isted, still less oun there be any proof that such and such 
were his actions, as have been ascribed to him. Those who 
might have reasons or prejudices to induce them to deny 
that such and such were the actions ascribed to such a per¬ 
son, could have mine to deny or to conceal the mere fact 
of his existence as a man. To this effect, the testimony 
of enemies is as good as that of friends. One competent 
historian, (if such can be adduced), speaking of Jesus of 
Nazareth as an impostor, would be as unexceptionable a 
witness to the fact of his existence, as one who should 
assert every thing that hath ever been asserted of him. 

The authentic and unsophisticated testimony of Celsus, 
that Jesus of Nazareth wrought miracles by the power of 
magic, though it be no proof that Jesus of Nazareth 
wrought miracles by the power of magic, and no proof 
that Jesus of Nazareth wrought miracles, yet as far as it 
avails, it avails to the proof of the conviction of Celsus, 
that such a person as Jesus of Nazareth really existed.* 
We emphatically say such a person as Jesus of Nazareth ; 
because the name Jesus being as common among the Jews, 
as John or Thomas among Christians ; nothing hinders 
but there might have been some dozen, score, or hun¬ 
dred Jesuses of Nazareth ; so that proof (if it could be 
adduced) of the existence of any one of these, unless 
coupled with an accompanying proof that that one was 
the Jesus of Nazareth distinguished from ail others of that 
designation, by the circumstance of having been “cruci¬ 
fied under Pontius Pilate,” would be no proof of the ex¬ 
istence of the Jesus of the Gospel, of whose identity the 
essential predicates are, not alone the name Jesus , and 
the place Nazareth , but the characteristic distinction of 
crucifixion. 

Still less, and further off than ever from any absolute 
‘dentification with the Jesus of the Gospel, is the regal 

* It must never be forgotten, that vve have no testimony of Celsus, but only 
the testimony which Origen has fathered on him : which is a very dilferenl 
thing. 


DEFINITIONS. 


7 


title Christ,* or the Anointed , which was not only held 
by all the kings of Israel, but so commonly assumed by 
all sorts of impostors, conjurors, and pretenders to super¬ 
natural communications, that the very claim to it, is in 
the gospel itself, considered as an indication of impos¬ 
ture, and a reason and rule for withholding our credence • 
there being no rule in that gospel more distinct, than, that 
“ if any man shall say to you , lo, here is Christ, or lo, he is there, 
believe him not,” Mark xiv. 21. No reason more explicit, 
than, that u many false Christs should arise,” Matt. xxiv. 24, 
Luke xxi. 8; and no statement more definitive, than that, 
when one of his immediate disciples applied that title to 
the Jesus of the gospel, he himself disclaimed it, u and 
straitly charged and commanded them to tell no man that thing,” 
Luke ix. 21,f Matt. xvi. 29. 

So that should authentic and probable history present 
us with a record of the existence of a Christ, pretending 
to a supernatural commission : we should have but that 
one chance for, against the many chances against the 
identity of such a Christ with the person of the Jesus of 
Nazareth. 

Should authentic history present us even with a Christ 
who was crucified, though such a record would cer¬ 
tainly come within the list of very striking coincidences , 
in relation to the evangelical story ; yet as we certainly 
know that Christ was one of the most ordinary titles 
that religious impostors were wont to assume, and Cru¬ 
cifixion, an ordinary punishment consequent on detected 
imposture, a Christ crucified, would by no means iden¬ 
tify the u Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,” of the New Tes¬ 
tament. 

The testimony of Tacitus however, which we shall 
consider in its chronological order, purports to be more 
specific than this, and to come up nearly to the full 
amount of the predications necessary to establish the iden¬ 
tification required u Christ, who was put to death under the 
Procurator Pontius Pilatc.”\ This is either genuine, 

* Even the heathen Prince Cyrus , is called, by Isaiah, the Christ of God 
—Isaiah xiv. 1. 

t This is not the usual sense given to these words, but it is borne out by hif 
questions to the pharisees, “What think ye of Christ? whose son is he?” 
Matt. xxii. 42. A mode of speaking that no man could use with reference to 
himself. 

X It wants only the addition of the name, Jesus. It is however hardly 
likely that two claimants ot the name Christ, should have been crucified under 
the same governor. 


8 


DEFINITIONS. 


authentic, and valid evidence to the full extent to which 
it purports to extend ; or it is the forgery of a wonderfully 
adroit and well-practised sophisticator. 

The extent of its purport will be matter of subsequent 
investigation. Our respect for it, in the present stage of 
our process, stands in guarantee of our willingness and 
desire to receive and admit whatever bears the character 
of that sort of rational evidence, which is admitted on all 
other questions; while we lay to the line and the plummet, 
that irremeable and everlasting border of distinction that 
separates the bright focus of truth and certainty, from the 
misly indistinctness and confusion of fallacy and fable. 

But further olF, even to an infinite remoteness from any 
designation or reference to the person of the crucified 
Jesus, are the complimentary and idolatrous epithets of 
honour or of worship, which the heathen nations, from the 
remotest antiquity, were in the habit of applying to their 
gods, demigods, and heroes, who from the various services 
which they were believed to have rendered to mankind, 
were called saviours of the world, redeemers of mankind, 
physicians of souls, &c., and addressed by every one of 
the doxologies, even, not excepting one of those which 
Christian piety has since confined and appropriated to the 
Jewish Jesus. 

Nor are any of the supernatural, or extraordinary cir¬ 
cumstances, which either with truth or without it, are 
asserted or believed of the man of Nazareth, at all cha¬ 
racteristic or distinctive of that person, from any of the 
innumerable host of heaven-descended, virgin-born, won¬ 
der-working sons of God, of whom the like supernatural 
and extraordinary circumstances were asserted and be¬ 
lieved, with as great faith, and with as little reason. 

To have been the whole world’s desideratum , to have 
been foretold by a long series of undoubted prophecies, 
to have been attested by a glorious display of indisputable 
miracles, to have revealed the most mystical doctrines, 
to have acted as never man acted, and to have suffered as 
never man suffered, were among the most ordinary cre¬ 
dentials of the gods and goddesses with which Olympus 
groaned. 

As our business in this treatise is, with stubborn fact 
and absolute evidence, 1 shall subjoin so much of the 
Christian creed as is absolutely and unquestionably of 
Pagan origin, and which, though not found as put toge¬ 
ther in this precise formulary, is certainly to be deduced 


CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN CREEDS COLLATED. 9 

from previously existing Pagan writings. That only, 
which could not, or would not, have expressed the 
fair sense of any form of Pagan faith, can be pecu¬ 
liarly Christian. That only which the Christian finds 
that he has to say, of which a worshipper of the gods 
could not have said the same or the like before him, is 
Christianity. 


CHAPTER II. 

THE CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN CREEDS COLLATED. 


The Christian Creed. 

1. I believe in God the Fa¬ 
ther Almighty, maker of hea¬ 
ven and earth. 

2. And in Jesus Christ his 
only son our Lord, who was 
conceived by the Holy Spirit 

3. Rom of the Virgin Mary. 

4. Suffered under Pontius 
Pilate. 

5. Was crucified. 

6. Dead and bnried. 

7. He descended into hell. 

8. The third day he rose 
again from the dead. 

9. He ascended into heaven. 

10. And sitteth at the right 
hand of God the Father Al¬ 
mighty. 

11. From whence he shall 
come to judge the quick and 
the dead. 

12. I believe in the Holy 
Ghost. 

13. The Holy Catholio 

Church. 

14. The Communion of 

Saints. 

15. The forgiveness of sins. 


The Pagan Creed. 

I believe in God the Father 
Almighty, maker of heaven and 
eartn. 

And in Jasius* Christ his 
only son our Lord, who was 
conceived bv the Holy Spirit. 

Born of the Virgin Electra. 

Suffered under (whom it 
might be.) 

Was struck by a thunder¬ 
bolt. 

Dead and buried. 

He descended into hell. 

The third day he rose again 
from the dead. 

He ascended into heaven. 

And sitteth at the right hand 
of God the F ather Almighty. 

From whence he shall come 
to judge the quick and the 
dead. 

I believe in the Holy Ghost. 

The Holy Catholic Divinity. 

The Communion of Saints 

The forgiveness of sins. 


* ** Jasiusque Pater, genus a quo prlncipe nostrum.” And father Jasius, from 
which Prince our race is descended.— Virgil. 


10 


CHRISTIAN AND PAGAN CREEDS COLLATED. 


16. The resurrection of the 
body. 

17. And the life everlasting. 

This creed, though not to be 
found in this form in the Chris¬ 
tian Scriptures, is evidently de- 
ducible from them as their sense 
and purport. 

“ This creed still bears the 
name of the Apostle’s Creed. 
From the fourth century down¬ 
wards it was almost generally 
considered as a production of 
the Apostles. All, however, 
who have the least knowledge 
of antiquity, look upon this 
opinion as entirely false and 
destitute of all foundation. 
There is much more reason in 
the opinion of those who think 
that this creed was not all 
composed at once, but from 
small beginnings was imper¬ 
ceptibly augmented, in propor¬ 
tion to the growth of heresy, 
and according to the exigen¬ 
cies and circumstances of the 
church, from which it was de¬ 
signed to banish the errors that 
daily arose.”—Mosheim, vol. i. 
p. 116, 117 


The immortality of the soul 

And the life everlasting. 

This creed, though not to be 
found in this form in the Pagan 
Scriptures, is evidently deduci- 
ble from them as their sense 
and purport. 

The reader is to throw into 
this scale, an equal quantity of 
allowance and apology to that 
claimed by the advocate of 
Christianity for the opposite. 
He will only observe that on 
this side, apology and pallia¬ 
tion for a known and acknow¬ 
ledged imposture and forgery 
for so many ages palmed upon 
the world, is not needed. 

It is not the Pagan creed 
that was imposed upon man¬ 
kind, under a false superscrip¬ 
tion, and ascribed to an autho¬ 
rity from which it was known 
not to have proceeded. Whe¬ 
ther a church, which stands 
convicted of having forged its 
creed, would have tnade any 
scruple of forging its gospels ; 
is a problem that the reader will 
solve according to the influence 
of prejudice or probability on 
his mind. 


INFERENCE. 

As then, the so called Apostle’s Creed, is admitted to 
have been written by no such persons as the Apostles, 
and with respect to the high authority which has for so 
many ages been claimed for it, is a convicted imposture 
and forgery ; the equity of rational evidence will allow 
weight enough, even to a probable conjecture, to overthrow 
all that remains of its pretensions. The probability is, 
that it is really a Pagan document, and of Pagan origi¬ 
nation ; since, even after the trifling alteration and sub¬ 
stitution of one name perhaps for another, to make it 
subserve its new application, it yet exhibits a closer resem- 



STATE OF THE MEATHEN WORLD. 


11 


blance to its Pagan stock, than to the Christian stem on 
which it has been engrafted. 

By a remarkable oversight of the keepings and congrui 
ties of the system, the Christian creed has omitted to 
call for our belief of the miracles or prophecies which 
constitute its evidence, or for our practice of the duties 
which should be the test of its utility. 

If then, as the learned and judicious Jeremiah Jones, 
in his excellent treatise on the canonical authority of the 
New Testament, most justly observes, “ In order to es¬ 
tablish the canon of the New Testament, it be of absolute 
necessity that the pretences of all other books to canonical 
authority be first examined and refuted much more 
must it be absolutely necessary to establish the paramount 
and distinctive challenges of Christianity, that we should 
be able to refute and overthrow all the pretences of pre¬ 
viously existing religions, by such a cogency and fair¬ 
ness of argument, as in being fatal to them, shall admit of 
no application to this, which battering down their air- 
built castles, shall, when brought to play with equal force 
on Christianity, leave its defences unshaken and its beauty 
unimpaired. 


CHAPTER III. 

STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 

It is manifestly unworthy of any cause, in itself con¬ 
taining an intrinsic and independent excellence, that its 
advocates should condescend to set it off by a foil, or to 
act as if they thought it necessary to decry and disparage 
the pretensions of others, in order to magnify and exalt 
their own. It is certain that the vilcncss of falsehood 
can add nothing to the glory of truth. Showing the va¬ 
rious systems of heathen idolatry to be, how vile soever, 
would be adducing neither evidence nor even presumption 
for the proof of the divinity of a system of religion that 
was not so vile, or even if you please, say infinitely supe 
rior ; as a beautiful woman would certainly feel it to be 
but an ill compliment to her beauty, to have it constantly 
obtruded upon her observance, how hideously de termed 
and monstrously ugly were those, than whom she waa so 
much more beautiful. 

* Vol. I. p. 16. 8vo. Ed. 


[2 STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 

As it would not be fair to take up our notion of toe 
Christian religion, from the lowest and most ignorant of 
its professors, and still less, perhaps, to estimate its merits, 
by the representations which its known and avowed ene¬ 
mies would be likely to give ; the balance of equal justice 
on the other side, will forbid our forming our estimate of 
the ancient paganism from the misconceptions of its un¬ 
worthy votaries, or the interested detractions and exag¬ 
gerations of its Christian opponents. 

The only just and honourable estimate will be that 
which shall judge of paganism, as Christians would wish 
their own religion to be judged—by its own absolute docu¬ 
ments, by the representations of its advocates, and the 
admissions of its adversaries. 

When it is borne in mind, that a supernatural origin¬ 
ation or divine authority is not claimed for these sys¬ 
tems of theology, there can be no occasion to fear their 
rivalry or encroachment on systems founded on such a 
claim ; and still less, to decry, vituperate, and scan¬ 
dalize these, as any means of exalting or magnifying 
those. There cannot be the least doubt, that in dark and 
barbarous ages, the rude and unlettered part of mankind 
would grossly pervert the mystical or allegorical sense, 
if such there were, in the forms of religion propounded 
to their observance or imposed on their simplicity ; while 
it is impossible, that those erdighted and philosophical 
characters, who have left us in their writings the most un¬ 
doubted evidence of the greatest shrewdness of intellect, 
extent of inquiry, and goodness of heart, should have un¬ 
derstood their mythology in no better or higher signifi- 
cancy than as it was understood by the ignorant of their 
own persuasion, or would be represented by their ene¬ 
mies, who had the strongest possible interest in defaming 
and decrying it. When the worst is done in this way, 
Christianity would be but little the gainer by being 
weighed in the same scales. Should we be allowed to 
fix on the darkest day of her eleven hundred years of dark 
ages, and to pit the grossest notions of the grossest igno¬ 
rance of that day, as specimens of Christianity ; against 
the views which Christians have been generally pleased 
to give as representations of paganism ; how would they 
abide the challenge, “ look on this picture aud on this ?” 
Those doctrines only, of which no forrq or forms of the 
previously existing paganism could ever pretend the same 
or the like doctrines, can be properly and distinctively 


STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 


13 


called Christian. That degree of excellence, whose very 
lowest stage is raised above the very highest acme of 
what is known and admitted to have been no more than 
human, can alone put in a challenge to be regarded as 
divine. That which was not known before, is that only 
which a subsequent revelation can have taught. 

To justify the claims, therefore, of such a subsequent 
revelation, we must make the full allowance, and entirely 
strike out of the equation, al 1 quantities estimated to their 
fullest and utmost appreciation, which are, and have 
been claimed as the property of pre-existent systems , 
and as they were not divine, while it is pretended that 
this w, the discovery of a resemblance between the one 
and the other, can only be feared by those who are con¬ 
scious that they are making a false pretence. Resem¬ 
blance to a counterfeit is, in this assay, proof of a coun¬ 
terfeit. Brass may sometimes be brought to look like gold, 
but the pure gold had never yet the ring and imperfections 
of any baser metal. 

At the time alleged as that of the birth of Jesus, all na¬ 
tions were living in the peaceful profession and practice 
of the several systems of religious faith which they had, 
as nations or as families, derived from their ancestors, in 
an antiquity lying far beyond the records of historical 
commemoration. Christians generally claim for this 
epocha of time the truly honourable distinction of being 
the pacific age.* The benign influence of letters and 
philosophy, was at this time extensively diffused through 
countries which had previously lain under the darkest 
ignorance ; and nations, whose manners had been savage 
and barbarous, were civilized by the laws and commerce 
of the Romans. The Christian writer Orosius , maintains 
that the temple of Janus was then shut, and that wars 
and discords had absolutely ceased throughout the world : 
which, though an allegorical, and very probably an hy¬ 
perbolical representation of the matter, is at least an 
honourable testimony to the then state of the heathen 
world. 

The notion of one supreme being was universal. No 
calumny could be more egregious, than that which charges 
the pagan world with ever having lost sight of that 
notion, or compromised or surrendered its paramount 
importance, in all the varieties and modifications of pagan 


Mosheirn, Vo!. I. Chap. 1. 

3 


14 


STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 


piety.* This predominant notion (admits Mosheim, 
showed itself, even through the darkness of the grossest 
idolatry. 

The candour which gives the Protestant Christian 
credit for his professed belief in the unity of God, even 
against the conflict cf his own assertion of believing at 
the same time in. a trinity of three persons, which are each 
of them a God ; the fairness which respects the dis¬ 
tinction which the Catholic Christian challenges between 
his Latria and Doulia, his worship of the Almighty, and 
his veneration of the images of the saints, will never 
suppose that the divinity of the inferior deities was under¬ 
stood in any sense of disparagement to the alone supreme 
and undivided godhead of their 44 one first—one greatest— 
only Lord of all.” 

The evidences of Christianity must be in a labouring 
condition indeed, if they require ns to imagine that a 
Cicero, Tacitus, or Pliny were worshippers of gods of 
wood and stone ; or to force on our apprehensions such a 
violence, as that we should imagine that the mighty mind 
that had enriched the world with Euclid’s Elements of 
Geometry, could have bowed to the deities of Euclid’s 
Egypt, and worshipped leeks and crocodiles. 

Orthodoxy itself will no longer suggest its resistance to 
the only faithful and rational account of the matter, so 
elegantly given us by Gibbon.f 44 The various modes of 
worship which prevailed in the Roman world, were all 
considered, by the people, as equally true,—by the philoso¬ 
pher, as equally false,—and by the magistrate, as equally 
useful. 

44 Both the interests of the priesis, and the credulity of 
the people were sufficiently respectca. In their writings 
and conversation, the philosophers of antiquity asserted 
the independent dignity of reason : bin they resigned 
their actions to the commands of law and custom. View- 
: ng with a smile of pity and indulgence the various errors 
of the vulgar, they diligently practised the ceremonies of 
their fathers, devoutly frequented the temples of the 
gods ; and sometimes condescending to act a part on the 
theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of 

* All the inferior deities in Horner, are represented as thus addressing tht 
supreme Jove 

“ Oh first and greatest, GOD ! by gods adored, 

We own thy power, our father and our lord.”— Iliad . 

* Decline and Fall of the Homan Empire, vol. i. chap. 2. p. 46. 


STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 


15 


in atheist under the sacerdotal robe. Reasoners of such 
fc temper were scarcely inclined to wrangle about their 
respective modes of faith, or of worship. It was indiffer¬ 
ent to them what shape the folly of the multitude might 
choose to assume ; and they approached with the same 
inward contempt and the same external reverence to the 
altars of the Lybian, the Olympian, or the Capitoline 
Jupiter.”* 

It was a common adage among the Greeks, 6*vfMr 
teapot*—Miracles for fools ; and the same proverb obtained 
among the shrewder Romans, in the saying, Vulgus vult 
decipi—decipiatur, u The common people like to be deceived — 
deceived let them be.” 

The Christian, perhaps, may boast of his sincerity, but 
a moment’s thought will admonish him how little virtue 
there is in such a quality, when it forces a necessity of 
hypocrisy on others. Sincerity should be safe on both 
sides of the hedge. It was never taken for a virtue in an 
unbeliever. 

“ Every nation then had its respective gods, over which 
presided one more excellent than the restand the de¬ 
gree of this pre-eminency, as versified by Pope from 
the 6th book of the Iliad, is an absolute vindication of 
the Pagan world from the charge of the grosser and more 
revolting sense of Polytheism. They were virtually 
Deists. None of their divinities were thought to approach 
nearer to the supremacy of the father of gods and men, 
than the various orders of the Cherubim and Seraphim, tc 
the God and Father of Jesus Christ, 

“-Who but behold his utmost skirts of glory, 

And far off, his steps adore.” 

So in the language of their Iliad (and language has nothing 
more sublime) we read the august challenge :— 

“ Let down our golden everlasting chain, 

Whose strong embrace holds heaven, and earth, and main ; 

Strive all of mortal or immortal birth, 

To drag by this the thunderer down to earth. 

Ye strive in vain. If I but lift this hand, 

I heave the heavens, the ocean, and the land ; 

For such I reign unbounded and above, 

And such are men, and gods, compared to Jove.” 

Mosheim, upon an evident misunderstanding, assumes 
that their supreme deity, in comparison to whom th 


Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. i. p. 49, 50. 



16 


STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 


gods and goddesses were as far off from an absolute 
divinity, as ever were the guardian angels and tutelary 
saints of Christianity ; was himself believed to be subject 
to the rigid empire of the fates , or what the philosophers 
called eternal necessity. But the word fate , by its derivation 
from the natural indication of command— Fiat ! Be it so ; 
may satisfy us, that nothing more was meant, than that 
the supreme deity was bound by his own engagements, 
that his word was irrevocable, and that all his actions 
were determined and guided by the everlasting law of 
righteousness, and conformed to the counsels and sanctions 
of his own unerring mind. So that He, and He alone, 
could say with truth, 

«-Necessity arid Chance 

Approach me not, and what I will—is fate.” 

“ One thing, indeed,” says our authority, (Mosheim), 

appears at first sight very remarkable—that the variety 
of religions and gods in the heathen world, neither pro¬ 
duced wars nor dissentions among the different nations.”* 
A diligent and candid investigation of historical data will 
demonstrate, that from this general rule, there is no valid 
and satisfactory instance of exception. The Greeks may 
have carried on a war to recover lands that had been 
distrained from the possession of their priests ; and the 
Egyptians may have revenged the slaughter of their 
crocodiles ; but these wars never proposed as their 
object, the insolent intolerance of forcing their modes 
of faith or worship on other nations. They were not 
offended at their neighbours for serving other divinities, 
but they could not bear that theirs, should be put to 
death. And if, perhaps, where we read the word divini¬ 
ties, we should understand it to mean nothing more than 
favourites ; and instead of saying that people worshipped 
such and such things, that they were excessively or fool¬ 
ishly attached to them ; considering that such language 
owes its original modification to Christian antipathies, it 
might be brought back to a nearer affinity to probability, 
as well as to charity. An Egyptian might be as fond of 
onions, as a Welshman of leeks, a Scot of thistles, or an 
Irishman of shamrock, without exactly taking their gar¬ 
bage for omnipotence.! 

* Their religion had not made fools of them. 

t Who that wished to be a thriving wooer, ever hesitated to drop on his kne« 
and adore his mistress? “With my body I thee worship.”— Matrimonial 
Service 



STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 


17 


u Each nation suffered its neighbours to follow their 
own method of worship, to adore their own gods, to 
enjoy their own rites and ceremonies, and discovered no 
displeasure at their diversity of sentiments in religious 
matters. They all looked upon the world as one great 
empire, divided into various provinces, over every one 
of which, a certain order of divinities presided, and that, 
therefore, none could behold with contempt the gods of 
other nations, or force strangers to pay homage to theirs. 

The Romans exercised tins toleration in the amplest 
manner. As the sources from which all men’s ideas are 
derived, are the same, namely, from their senses, there 
being no other inlet to the mind but thereby, there is 
nothing wonderful in the general prevalence of a same¬ 
ness of the ideas of human beings in all regions and all 
ages of the world. The affections of fear, grief, pain, 
hope, pleasure, gratitude, &c., are as common to man as 
his nature as a man, and could not fail to produce a cor¬ 
responding similarity in the objects of his superstitious 
veneration. To have nothing in common with the 
already established notions of mankind, to bear no fea¬ 
tures of resemblance to their hallucinations and follies, to 
be nothing like them, to be to nothing so unlike, should 
be the essential predications and necessary credentials of 
the u wisdom which is from above.” 

It has, however, been alleged by learned men, with 
convincing arguments of probability, “ that the princi¬ 
pal deities of all the Gentile nations resembled each 
other extremely, in their essential characters ; and if so, 
their receiving the same names could not introduce much 
confusion into mythology, since they were probably 
derived from one common source. If the Thor of the 
ancient Celts, was the same in dignity, character, and 
attributes with the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans, 
where was the impropriety of giving him the same name? 
Dies Jovis is still the Latin form for our Thor’s day. 
When the Greeks found in other countries deities that 
resembled their own, they persuaded the worshippers of 
those foreign gods that their deities were the same that 
were honoured in Greece, and were, indeed, themselves 
convinced that this was the case. In consequence of this, 
the Greeks gave the names of their gods to those of other 
nations, and the Romans in this followed their example. 
Hence we find the names of Jupiter. Mars, Mercury, 
Venus, &c., frequently mentioned in the more recent 

3 * 


IS STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 

monuments and inscriptions which have been found among 
the Gauls and Germans, though the ancient inhabitants of 
those countries had worshipped no gods under such de¬ 
nominations .”—Note in JWoskeim. 

To have been goddess-born, heaven-descended; to have 
“ lived and died as none could live and die,” 1o have been 
believed to have done and suffered great things for the 
service of mankind, but above all, to have propitiated 
the wrath of the Superior Deity, and to have conquered 
the invisible authors of mischief, in their behalf, was such 
an overwhelming draft on the tender feelings, the excite¬ 
ment of which is one of the strongest sources of pleasure 
in our nature, that the best hearts and the weakest heads 
never gave place to the coolness and apathy of scepti¬ 
cism. Not a doubt was entertained that a similar series 
of adventures was proof of one and the same hero, and 
that the Grecian Apollo, the Phoenician Adonis, the 
iEsculapius of Athens, the Osiris of Egypt, the Christ of 
India, were but various names of the self-same deity; so 
that nothing was so easy at any time, as the business of 
conversion. Not incredulity, but credulity, is the charac¬ 
teristic propensity of mankind. 

A disposition to adopt the religious ceremonies of othei 
nations, to multiply the objects of faith, to listen with 
eagerness to any thing that was offered to them under a 
profession of novelty, to believe every pretence to divine 
revelation, and to embrace every creed, presents itself in 
the history of almost every society of men, and is found 
as inalienable a characteristic of uncivilized, or but par¬ 
tially civilized man, as cunning is of the fox, and courage 
of the lion. Unbelief is no sin that ignorance was ever 
capable of being guilty of; to suspect it of the Gentile 
nations previous to the Christian era, is to outrage all 
inferences of our own experience, and to suppose the 
human race in former times to have been a different species 
of animals from any of which the wonder-loving and credu¬ 
lous vulgar of our own days could be the descendants*- 

Of all miracles that could possibly be imagined, the 
miracle of a miracle not being believed, would be the 
most miraculous, the most incongruous in its character, 
and the nearest to the involving a contradiction in its 
terms. If proof of a truth so obvious were not super¬ 
fluous, the Christian might be commended to the consi¬ 
deration of authorities, to whose decision he is trained 
and disposed to submit. 


STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD. 


ly 


His Paul of Tarsus finds, in the city of Athens, an altar 
erected to the Unknown Gods;* and taking 1 what Le Clerc 
considers a justifiable liberty with the inscription, compli¬ 
ments the citizens on such a proof of their predisposi¬ 
tion to receive the God whom he propounded to them, or 
any other, as well without evidence as with it, and to be 
converted without putting him to the trouble of a miracle. 
Acts xvii. 22. 

The inhabitants of Lystra, upon only hearing of the 
most equivocal and suspicious case of wonderment that 
could well be imagined, even that a lame beggar, who 
might have been hired for the purpose, or probably had 
never been lame at all, had been cured, or imagined him¬ 
self cured, by two entire strangers, itinerant Therapeutse, 
or tramping quack-doctors, without either inquiry o^ 
doubt, setup the cry, “That Jupiter and Mercury were 
come down from heaven in the shape of these quack-doc¬ 
tors and with all the doctors themselves could do to 
check the intensity of their devotion, u scarce restrained they 
the people that they had not done sacrifice —Acts xiv. 18. 

* “ Quamvis plurali numero legeretur inscriptio ayvmOTotg St oig recte de Deo 
Ignoto, locutus est Paulus. Q,uia plurali numero continetur singularis.”— Cl ere. 
H. G. A. 52. p. 374. There is sufficient evidence, however, that Paul read the 
inscription correctly ; so that the commentator’s ready quibble is not called for. 

The various translations given of this text, make a good specimen of the dilRcuity 
of coming at the real sense of any ancient legends. 

THE GREEK. THE LATIN. 

Zrafeictso IlavXog sv uscuu re antie- , Stans autem Paulus in medio Areo 
nayn t(prj arty sc jlOypaioi xara navra pagi, ait> \ iri Athenensis, per omnia 
tug dsiOidatuoreoTsQ&g v^iag-SswQcu. quasi superstitiones vos aspicio. 

1. DR. LARDNER’s TRANSLATION. 

“ Paul, therefore, standing up in the midst of the Areopagus, said, Ye men of 
Athens, I perceive that ye are in all things very religious.” 

2. UNITARIAN VERSION. 

«« Then Paul stood in the midst of the court of Areopagus, and said, Ye men 
of Athens, I perceive that ye are exceedingly addicted to the worship of demons.” 

3. archbishop newcomb’s version. 

“ Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are somewhat too reli¬ 
gious.” 

4. COMMON VERSION. 

“ Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.” 

These various translators, however, did not mean exactly to discover, that reli¬ 
gion and superstition were convertible terms.— Six, is one thing, and half a dozea 
»s another. 


20 


STATE OF THE JEWS 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE STATE OF THE JEWS. 

The grand exception to the harmonious universalism of 
religions, and to that entire prevalence, as far as religion 
was concerned, of “peace on earth and good will among 
men,” which arose fruia the practical conviction of ? 
sentiment which had passed into a common proverb, 
“Deorum injuries, Diis curas,” that “ The wrongs of the 
gods were the concerns of the gods” occurred among a 
melancholy and misanthropic horde of exclusively super¬ 
stitious barbarians, who, from their own and the best 
account that we have of them, were colonized from 
their captivity, by a Babylonian prince, on the sterile 
soil of Judea, about twenty-three hundred years ago; 
and, by the exclusive, unsocial, and uncivilized character 
of their superstition, were exposed to frequent wars 
and final dispersion. The exclusive character of their 
superstition, and the constant intermarriage with their 
own caste or sect, have, to this day, preserved to them, in 
all countries, a distinct character. These barbarians, who 
resented the consciousness of their inferiority in the scale 
of rational being, by an invincible hatred of the whole 
human race, being without wit or invention to devise to 
themselves any original system of theology, adopted from 
time to time the various conceits of the various nations, 
by whom their rambling and predatory tribes had been 
held in subjugation. They plagiarized the religious 
legends of the nations, among whom their characteristic 
idleness and inferiority of understanding had caused them 
to be vagabonds ; and pretended that the furtive patch- 
work was a system of theology intended by heaven 
for their exclusive benefit. There is, however, nothing 
extraordinary in this ; the miserable and the wretched 
always seek to console themselves for the absence of real 
advantages, by an imaginary counterbalance of spiritual 
privilege. An’ let them be the caterers, they shall always 
be the favourites of Omnipotence, and their afflictions in 
this world, shall be to be overpaid with a “ far more 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory,” in another 
In some instances it will be found, that the means ol 
detecting the original idea has been washed down the 


STATE OF THE JEWS. 


21 


stream of time. The Jews, who, probably, always were, 
as they are at present, the old-clothes-men of the world, 
have had but little difficulty in scratching up a sufficient 
freshness of nap upon borrowed or stolen theology, to 
disguise its original character. Very often, however, has 
their idleness betrayed their policy, and left us scarcely so 
much as an alteration of names to put us to the trouble of 
a doubt. 

They give us the story of the sacrifice of Ipthegenia, 
the daughter of Agamemnon, as an original legend of a 
judge of Israel, who had immolated his daughter to 
Yahouh, or Jao, without so much as respecting the wish 
to be deceived, not even being at the pains to vary the 
name of the heroine of the fable. By a division of the 
syllables into two words, Ipthi-geni is literally Jeptha’s 
daughter ; and eVen the name of Moses himself, as it 
stands in the Greek text, is composed of the same 
consonant letters as Mises, the Arabian name of Bacchus, 
of whom precisely the same adventures were related, 
and belk ved, many ages before there existed a race 
known on earth as the nation of Israel, or any individual 
of that nation capable of committing either truth or false¬ 
hood to written documents. There have been dancing 
bears, sagacious pigs, and learned horses in the world, 
but the Jews are as innocent as any of them of the 
faculty of original invention. 

Their strong man (Samson) carrying away the gates of 
Gaza, is scarcely a various reading from the story ol 
Hercules’ pillars at Gades, Cades, or Cadiz. 

That this melancholy race of rambling savages bar. 
derived the principal features of their theology from the 
deities of Egypt, is demonstrable from the literal identity 
of the name of the god of Memphis, Jao, with that of the 
boasted god of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, who are 
each of them believed to have been either natives or very 
long residents of that country. 

Moses himself, on the face of their own report, was 
confessedly an Egyptian priest. The Jewish Elohim 
were the decans of the Egyptians ; the same as the genii 
of the months and planets among the Persians and Chal¬ 
deans ; and Jao, or Yahouh, considered merely as one 
of these ’ beings generically called Elohim or Alehim, 
appears to have been only a national or topical deity. 
We find one of the presidents of the Jewish horde, 
negotiating with a king of the Amorites, precisely on 


22 


STATE OF THC JEWS. 


these terms of a common understanding between them 
“ Wilt not thou possess that which Chemosh, thy Alehim, 
giveth thee to possess ? So whomsoever Jao, our Alehim, 
shall drive out from before us, them will we possess.”* 

Nor is it at all concealed, that the power of Jao, as much 
as of any other topical god, was confined to the province 
over which he presided. “The Jao Alehim ol Israel, 
fought for Israel,! and Jao drave out the inhabitants of 
the mountain ; but could not drive out the inhabitants of 
the valley, because they had chariots of iron.”! The 
God of Israel was no match for the tutelary deities of 
the valley. The first commandment of the decalogue 
involves a virtual recognition of the existence, and rival, 
if not equal claims of other deities. “ Thou shall have 
none other gods but me,” is no mandate that could have 
issued from one who had been entirely satisfied of his 
own supremacy, and that those to whom he had once 
revealed himself, were in no danger of giving a preference 
to the idols of the Gentiles. To say nothing of the highest 
implied compliment to those idols, in the confession of 
Jao, that he was jealous of his people’s attachment. “ i 
the Lord thy God am c jealous God,” Exod. xx. He was 
Lord of heaven and earth, &c. in such sense as the Empe¬ 
ror of China, the Grand Sultan, &c .,—by courtesy. 

It would be difficult to imagine, and surely impossible 
to find, among all the formularies of ancient Paganism, any 
manner of speaking ascribed to their deities more truly 
contemptible, more engregiously absurd and revolting to 
common sense, than the language which their lively 
oracles put into the mouth of their deity. Sometimes he is 
described as roaring like a lion, at others as hissing like 
a snake, as burning with rage, and unable to restrain his 
own passions, as kicking, smiting, 'cursing, swearing, 
smelling, vomiting, repenting, being grieved at his heart, 
his fury coming up in his face, his nostrils smoking, &c 
For which our Christian divines have invented the 
apology, “that these things are spoken thus, in accommo¬ 
dation to the weakness of human conceptions,” and 
cnVoorrconiAdo’s as humanly suffering ; without, however, al¬ 
lowing benefit of the same apology, to throw any sort of 
palliation over the grossnesses of the literal sense of the 
Pagan theology. It is well known, that the Pagan wor- 

* Judges xi. 24. f Joshua x. 42. 

t Judges i. 19. And note ivell, that this Chernosh, called in I. Kings xi. 7. the 
abomination of Moab, is none other than the Christian Messiah, or Sun of Righte¬ 
ousness, of Malachi iii. 20, or iv. 2 


STATE OF THE JEWS. 


23 


ship by no means involved such a real prostration of 
intellect, and such an absolute surrender of the senses 
and reason, as is involved in the Christian notion of pay¬ 
ing divine honours. It often meant no more than a habit 
of holding’ the thing so said to be worshipped, in a par¬ 
ticular degree of attachment, as many Christians carry 
about them a lucky penny, or a curious pebble, keep¬ 
sakes or mementos of past prosperity, or something which 
is to recall to their minds those agreeable associations of 
idea, which 

“ Lingering haunt the greenest spot 
On inein’ry’s waste.” 

Thus the Egyptian’s worship of onions, however at 
first view ridiculous and childish, and exposing him to 
the scorn and sarcasm both of Christian and Heathen 
satirists in his own view and representation of the 
matter, (which surely is as fairly to be taken into the 
account as the representations of those who would never 
give themselves the trouble to investigate what had on'ce 
moved their laughter,) by no means implied that he took 
the onion itself to be a god, or forgot or neglected its 
culinary uses as a vegetable. The respect he paid to it 
referred to a high and mystical order of astronomical 
speculations, and was purely emblematical. The onion 
presented to the eye of the Egyptian visionary, # the most 
curious type in nature of the disposition and arrange¬ 
ment of the great solar system. u Supposing the root 
and top of the head to represent the two poles, if you 
cut any one transversely or diagonally, you will find 
it divided into the same number of spheres, including 
each other, counting from the sun or centre to the cir¬ 
cumference, as they knew the motions or courses of the 
orbs (or planets) divided the fluid system of the heavens 
into ; and so the divisions represented the courses of 
those orbs.” This observation of Mr. Hutchinsonf has 
since been made or borrowed by Dr. Shaw, who observes, 
that “ the onion, upon account of the root of it, which 
consists of many coats enveloping each other, like the 
orbs (orbits) in the planetary system, was another of their 
sacred vegetables.”]: Our use of these observations, how- 

* Porrum et cepe n&fus violare et frangere morsu. 

O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis 
Nurnina ! Juvenal Sat. 15. lin. 9. 11. 

A sin, forsooth, to violate and break by biting the leek and onions. A 
holy people, in whose gardens these divinities are born ! 

t His works, vol. 4. p. 262. t Shaw’s Travels, p. 356. 


24 


STATE OF THE JEWS. 


ever, is only to supply a demonstration that the grossest 
forms of apparent nonsense and absurdity in which 
Paganism ever existed, were never more distressed for 
a good excuse, or the pretence of some plausible emble¬ 
matical and mystical sense, than Judaism, and that if 
we acquit the Jewish religion from the charge of extreme 
folly, there was never any religion on earth that could be 
fairly convicted of it. 

The plurality of the Hebrew word Aleim, for God , in 
the first chapter of Genesis, and in the Old Testamen 
throughout, is urged by orthodox divines as a .11 argument 
for their favourite doctrine of the Holy Trinity. 

The Jews find their text thus burthened with a sense 
which they themselves disclaim. A similar plural word— 
the heavens —expressive of precisely the same sense, 
where plurality is by no means the leading idea, is found 
in our own language, and among all nations whose ideas 
of deity were drawn as our own evidently are, from the 
visible heavens, the imaginary ceiling of ail upper story, 
in which the Deity was supposed to reside. 

The Hebrew D'atsr Shemmim , and the Chaldee xaiy 
Shemmai, are in like manner plural words—literally, the 
heavens , and used synonymously with dt6k Alehim —the 
gods—for God. # 

The Pagans used the same plural words, the gods , for 
God, although it was to one being alone that in the stricter 
sense that title was applicable. We use precisely the 
same plural form, u Heavens defend ns! synechdochically for 
God defend us! as in that beautiful and moral apostrophe 
of King Lear— 

“-Take physic, pomp ! 

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, 

That thou may’at shake the superflux to them, 

And show the heavens more just.” Shakspeare. 

that is, show God more just. 

This, our adherence to the Pagan phrase, happens to 
be consecrated by the text of the New Testament,j- in 

* Daniel iv. 26. “ Thy kingdom shall be sure unto thee after that thou shall 

have known that the heavens do rule,” i. e. that God, i. e. that the most 
hi oh, above our heads , doth rule. By the heavens, says Parkhurst, are signi¬ 
fied the true Aleim, or persons of Jehovah. Heb. Lex. p. 741.1. 

t Matt. xxi. 25.— Mark xi. 30, 31. Luke xv. 18. xx. 4, 5.— John iv. 27. 
71 parriXfia Tmv Hoavtav. The kingdom of the heavens and the 

// puoiXeia re ^£8. kingdom of God are throughout Mat¬ 

thew and Mark interchangeable. 



STATE OF THE JEWS. 


25 


which the kingdom of the heavens, and the kingdom of 
God, and God, and tiie heavens, are perfectly synony¬ 
mous, and used indifferently for the expression of precisely 
the same sense. Not a plurality of three, then, nor of 
any definite number, was implied by that plural noun 
used with the verb singular, in the Jewish Alehim , but 
merely that vague reference to the planets, from which 
the very name of God is derived,* and to which the 
primitive idea of all the multifarious modifications of 
idolatry or piety, superstition or religion, may ultimately 
be traced. The Jews themselves are as justly chargeable 
with polytheism, as the nations whose spiritual advantages 
they affect to despise. 

Their historian, Josephus, who lived and wrote about 
sixty years after Christ, sought in vain for the testimony 
of Egyptian authors to support the high pretensions he 
advanced. Not one has so much as mentioned the prodi¬ 
gies of Moses, or held out the least glimpse of probability 
or coincidence to his romantic tale. 

The whole fable of Moses, however, will be found in 
the Orphic verses sung in the orgies of Bacchus, as cele¬ 
brated in Egypt, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, for ages 
before such a people as the Jewish nation were known 
to be in existence. (See the chapter on Bacchus , in this 
Diegesis.) 

Christianity, however, is not so essentially connected 
with the Jewish religion as to stand or fall with it. Paley 
and other of the shrewder advocates of the established 
faith have intimated their wish that the two systems 
were considered as more independent of each other 
than they are generally held to be. There might be 
evidence enough left for the Christian religion, though 

* fteoc which is the source of the iPlolic dialect, or Latin Deus, from Otw dttir , 
currere, to run as do the planets. 

The Grecian philosophers generally believed that nature is God. No 
authors of any order of Christians whatever, in any of their writings, give us 
any positive idea on the subject, nor indeed any negative one, not derived from 
some or other of those philosophers. 

« The Yesfts of the New Testament preached only a sort of indeterminate, 
or at most, only Pharisaical deism. '1 hose who have professed and called them¬ 
selves Christians, have been ‘hardly such characters as any rational mind could 
imagine to have been the followers of such a master. Animated only with a 
furious zeal against idolatry, to which Yesus does not allude, these iconoclasts 
(image-breakers > seem to have maintained few positive metaphysical dogmata, 
till they wanted excuses for plundering from one another the plunder of Paganism.” 
I take this sentence from a treatise, entitled. Various Definitions of an Im¬ 
portant. Word , p. 18, in a printed but unpublished work of a learned and excel¬ 
lent friend 

4 


26 


STATE OF THE JEWS 


the Mosaic dispensation were considered as altogether 
fabulous ; and some have thought, that the evidence of 
Christianity would gain by a dissolution of partnership ; 
and a man might be the better Christian, as he certainly 
would be better able to defend his Christianity, by 
throwing over the whole of the Old Testament as inde¬ 
fensible, and contenting himself entirely with the sufficient 
guidance and independent sanctions of the New. “ The 
law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ,”* is an apothegm which Christians receive as 
of the highest authority : and yet no conceivable sense 
can be found in those words, short of an indication not only 
of distinctness, but of absolute contrariety of character, 
between the two religions. “ Grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ,” in the antithesis, can imply nothing else 
than that neither grace nor truth came by Moses ; to say 
nothing of those innumerable contemptuous manners of 
speaking of the old dispensation, as “ those ivectk and beg¬ 
garly elements,” f and that “ burthen which neither they nor their 
fathers were able to bear u all that ever came before me 
are thieves and robbers ;”§ in which Christ and the Apos¬ 
tles themselves refer to the religion of Moses. Certainly, 
none with whom we have to deal would ever care to 
defend Judaism, if once induced to doubt the independent 
challenges of Christianity. If this be untenable, that may 
very well be left to shift for itself in the wardrobes of 
Holly well-street and the Minories. “ The lion preys not 
upon carcases !” 

It is unquestionable, however, that even if the gospel 
story were altogether a romance, and all its dramatis per¬ 
sonae , as connected with what is called in poetical lan¬ 
guage, its machinery , merely imaginary, it is still a romance 
of that character, which mixes up its fantastical personages 
with real characters, and fastens events which never hap¬ 
pened, speeches which were never spoken, and doings 
which were never done, on persons, times, and places 
that had a real existence, and stood in the relations assign¬ 
ed to them. So that the romance is properly dramatical , 
and answers to the character of such ingenious and 
entertaining fictions, as in our own days are called 
romances of the particular century to which they are 
assigned, in which of course we have the Sir Rowlands, 
Sir Olivers, ana Sir Mortimers «»f the author’s invention, 


* Johni. 17. 

+ Acts XV. 10. 


t Galat. ix. 

§ John x. 8. 


STATE OF THE JEWS. 


27 


transacting business and holding dialogues with the Sala- 
dins, King Richards, Henrys, and Edwards of real his¬ 
tory. Nor are there wanting instances of plagiarism in 
the department of fiction. A shrewd novelist will often 
avail himself of an old story, will change the scene of 
action from one country to another, throw it further back, 
or bring it lower down, in the order of time ; and make 
the heroes of the original conceit, contemporaries and 
comrades of either an earlier or a later race of real per 
sonages. 

“ Josephus, and heathen authors have made mention 
of Herod, Archelaus, Pontius Pilate, and other persons 
of note, whose names we meet with in the Gospels and 
Acts of the Apostles, and have delivered nothing mate¬ 
rial concerning their characters, posts, and honours, that 
is different from what the writers of the New Testament 
have said of them.” 

Such is the first of Dr. Lardner’s arguments for the 
credibility of the gospel history, the sophism of which 
will in an instant start into observance, upon putting the 
simple questions—What is material ? And is it no fatal 
deficiency, that they should have omitted to mention 
what they by no possibility could have omitted to mention, 
had the personages so spoken of been so concerned in 
the gospel history, as they are therein represented to have 
been ? 

One of the most striking coincidences of the scriptural 
and profane history, is the reference to the death of Herod, 
in Acts xii. 21. 23, as compared with the account given 
by Josephus, whose words are, “ Having now reigned 
three whole years over all Judea, Herod went to the 
city Ceesarea. Here he celebrated shows in honour of 
Cscsar. On the second day he came into the theatre 
dressed in a robe of silver of most curious workmanship. 
The rays of the sun, then just rising, reflected from so 
splendid a garb, gave him a majestic and awful appear¬ 
ance. In a short time they began in several parts of the 
theatre flattering acclamations, which proved pernicious to 
him. They called him a god, and entreated him to be pro¬ 
pitious to them, saying, ‘ Hitherto we have respected you 
as a man, but now we acknowledge you to be more than 
mortal.’ The King neither reproved those persons, nor 
rejected the impious flattery. Soon after this,* casting 

* sfvaxvtfJccg S'or rov (ivfiwva r r/g tavro xs(pu?.rjg vnsp>xa9ttoutror nSev tru 
a/oi ro rivog ayyt.lov r* totov cvftvg eropcier xuxu>v a you tov xai noTt xwv ayaitww 
ytvo^itvov xai Siaxagiov oSvvtjr- —Antiq. lib. 19. c. 8. sect. 2 


» 


28 


STATE OF THE JEWS. 


his eyes upwards, he saw an owl sitting* upon a rope ove* 
his head. He perceived it to be a messenger of evil to him, 
as it had been before of his prosperity, and was grieved ai 
heart. Immediately after this he was affected with ex¬ 
tremely violent pains in his bowels, and turning to his 
friends, in anguish said, c I, your God, am required to 
leave this world; fate instantly confuting the false 
applauses you have bestowed on me; I, who have been 
called immortal, am hurried away to death ; but God’s 
appointment 'must be submitted to.’ These pains in his 
bowels continually tormenting him, he died on the fifth 
day, in the fiftyfourth year of his age, and of his reign the 
seventh.” 

There is a curious ambiguity in the Greek word for 
messenger ( angelos ), of which Eusebius availing himself, 
says nothing about the owl, but gives as the text of 
Josephus, that he beheld an angel hanging over his head upon 
a rope , and this he knew immediately to be an omen of evil.* 
Gardner justly reproves this fault in Eusebius, but has 
no reproof for the author of the Acts of the Apostles, who 
was privileged to improve the story still farther by adding 
that the angel of the Lord smote him , because he gave not God, 
the clary , (i. e. the spangles and gaudery of his silver 
dress.) This Herod was a deputy king holding his power 
under the appointment of Caius Caligula. 

The Pharisees were a sect of self-righteous and sanc¬ 
timonious hypocrites, ready to play into and keep up 
any religious farce that might serve to invest them with 
an imaginary sanctity of character, and increase their 
influence over the minds of the majority, whose good 
nature and ignorance in all ages and countries, is but ever 
too ready to subscribe the claims thus made upon it. 

They were the Quakers of their day, a set of commer¬ 
cial, speculating thieves, who expressed their religion in the 
eccentricity of their garb ; and, under professions of ex¬ 
traordinary punctiliousness and humanity, were the most 
over-reaching, oppressive, and inexorable of the human 
race. Of this sort was the apostolic chief of sinners, and 
this character he discovers through all accounts of his 
life and writings, that have entailed the curse of his ex¬ 
ample on mankind. 

The Sadducees were a set of materialists, who, as they 
were too sensible to be imposed on themselves, were 

* Jlvaxvxpag tie Tr\q savrs xripaXtjg vrccQxu&cLOjusrov enhv ayyeXov tm o/oivtn 
t ivog. Turov twdvg troyae uvixi airtov. —Euseb. Ec. His. lib. 2. c. 9. B. 


STATE OF THE JEWS. 


29 


the less disposed to cajole others. They were the most 
respectable part of the Jewish community, and by the 
influence of their more rational tenets and more moral 
example, served to infuse that leaven of reason and 
virtue, without which, the frame of society could hardly be 
held together. 

It is enough to know, in addition to the more than 
enough that every body may know, of the Mosaic insti¬ 
tutions, that the pretensions of the Jews, as a nation, to 
philosophy, never exceeded that of the dark and hidden 
science which they called the Cabbala , which, like their 
hidden theology, was nothing more than the Oriental 
philosophy, plagiarized and modelled to their own con¬ 
ceit, and a crude jumble of the various melancholy 
notions, which had forced themselves upon their minds 
in the course of their ramblings into the adjacent coun 
tries of Egypt and Phoenicia, and the little that ignorance 
itself could not help learning, in the course of their traffic 
with the Greeks, Persians, and Arabians. 

Their sacred scriptures of the Old Testament contain 
no reference to the Platonic doctrine of a future state.* 
Though the metaphysical notion of the immortality of 
the soul, had been inculcated and embraced in India, in 
Assyria, in Egypt, and in Gaul, and was believed with 
so influential and practical a faith, that its votaries would 
lend their money to be returned them again in the other 
world,! (a proof of sincerity less equivocal than martyr¬ 
dom itself.) Yet this doctrine appears to have been 
wholly unknown to the Jewish legislator, and is but 
darkly insinuated in any part of the prophetical writ¬ 
ings-! Hence the Sadducees, who, according to Jose¬ 
phus, respected only the authority of the Pentateuch (or 
five books of Moses), had no belief in a resurrection, angels 
or spirits, or any such chimerical hypostases. Nor does 
the Christ of the New Testament seem to have had the 
least idea of the possible existence of the soul, in a state 

* The only reward proposed for obedience to the law of God, was, that attached 
to the fifth, which is called by the Apostle, the first commandment with promise 
.—“ that thy days may be long in the land.” 

+ Vetus ilie mos Gallorurn occarr'rt, (says Valerius Maximus, 1. 2. c. 6. p. 10.) 
quos memotia proditum eel, pocunias mutuas dare solitos quae his, apud inferos 
retldereotur. 

+ It is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast 
into hell. It is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, 
than having two cyos, to be cast into hell fire.—Mark ix. 45. 47. Here was no dca 
of heaven, or the state of the hi eased, above a hospital of incurables. 

4* 


30 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


of separation from the body. All his attempts to alarm 
the cowardice and weakness of his hearers, are founded 
on the assumption, that the body must accompany the soul 
in its anabasis to heaven, or its descent to hell, and indeed 
that there was no virtual distinction between them. It 
must, however, be admitted to be a good and valid apology 
for the omission—that none of his followers have been 
able to supply the deficiency. 


CHAPTER Y. 

STATE OF PHILOSOPHY 

There is nothing that can be known of past ages, known 
with more unquestionable certainty, than that in , about , 
and immediately after the epoch a of time ascribed to the 
dawning of divine light, the human mind seems generally 
to have suffered an eclipse. The arts and sciences, intel¬ 
ligence and virtue, were smitten with an unaccountable 
palsy. The mind of man lost all its energies, and sunk 
under a generally prevailing imbecility. We look in vain 
among the successors of Cicero, Livy, Tacitus, Horace, 
and Virgil, the statesmen, orators, and poets of the 
golden age of literature, for a continuation of the series of 
such ornaments of human nature. A blight had smitten 
the growth of men’s understandings ; not only no more 
such clever men rose up, but with very few exceptions, 
no more such men as could have appreciated the talents 
of their predecessors, or possessing so much as the rela¬ 
tive degree of capacity, necessary to be sensible of the 
superiority that had preceded them. After reasonings so 
just, and eloquence so powerful, that even so late after 
the revival of literature as the present day, mankind 
have not yet learned to reason more justly, or to declaim 
more powerfully; a race of barbarous idiots possessed 
themselves of the seat of science and the muses ; and all 
distinction and renown was sought and obtained by absur¬ 
dities disgraceful to reason, and mortifications revolting 
to nature. “ The groves of the academy, the gardens of 
Epicurus, and even the porticoes of the Stoics, were 
deserted as so many different schools of scepticism or 
impiety, and many among the Romans were desirous that 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


31 


tne writings of Cicero should be condemned and s ippress- 
ed by the authority of the Senate.”* 

The reasoning of which all men see the absurdity, 
when applied by the victorious Caliph to justify the de¬ 
struction of the library of Alexandria,! appeared unan¬ 
swerable when adduced on the side of the true faith. 

Omar issued his commands for the destruction of that 
celebrated library, to his general, Amrus, in these words : 
u As to the books of which you have made mention, if there 
be contained in them what accords with the book of God 
(meaning the Koran of Mahomet), there is without them, 
in the book of God, all that is sufficient. But if there be 
any thing in them repugnant to that book, we in no respect 
want them. Order them, therefore, to be all destroyed.” 
— Harris. 

Precisely similar in spirit, and almost in form, are the 
respective decrees of the Emperors Constantine and 
Theodosius, which generally ran in the words, “ that all 
writings adverse to the claims of the Christian religion, 
in the possession of whomsoever they should be found, 
should be committed to the fire,” as the pious Emperors 
would not that those things which they took upon them¬ 
selves to assume, tended to provoke God to wrath, should 
be allowed to offend the minds of the pious.! Mr. Gib¬ 
bon, in his usual strain of caustic sarcasm, mentions the 
elaborate treatises which the philosophers, more espe¬ 
cially the prevailing sect of the new Platonicians, who 
endeavoured to extract allegorical wisdom from the 
fictions of the Greek poets, composed ; and the many ela¬ 
borate treatises against the faith of the Gospel, which 
have since been committed to the flames, by the prudence 
of orthodox emperors. The large treatise of Porphyry 
against the Christians, consisted of thirty books, and was 
composed in Sicily about the year 270. It was against 
the writings of this great man especially, who had 
acquired the honourable addition to his name, of the 
virtuous, that the exterminatory decree of Theodosius 
was more immediately directed. There is little doubt, 
that had the discoveries his writings would have made, 
been permitted to come to general knowledge, all the pre¬ 
tended external evidence of Christianity n ust have been 

* Gibbon, ch. 16. 

I The destruction of this celebrated library gave safety U the evidences of t!m 
Christian religion. 

t See the decrees quoted in my Syntagma, p. 35. 


32 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


given up as wholly untenable. But while what the virt i- 
ous Porphyry had really written, was committed to the 
ilames, a worse outrage was committed against his repu¬ 
tation, by Christians, who, aware of the great influence of 
his name and authority, ascribed the vile trash which they 
had composed themselves to him, for the purpose of making 
him seem to have made the admissions which it was for 
the interest of Christianity that he should have made, or 
to have attacked it so feebly, as might serve to show the 
advantage of their defences. The celebrated treatise on 
the Philosophy of Oracles, which even the pious Dod¬ 
dridge, and the learned Macknight, have ascribed to this 
great man, and availed themselves of, for that fraudulent 
purpose, has, by the greater fidelity and honesty of Lard- 
ner, been demonstrably traced home to the forging hands 
of Christian piety.* 

Before the Christian religion had made any perceptible 
advance among mankind, two grand and influential princi¬ 
ples characterized all the moving intelligence that then ex¬ 
isted in the world ; and to these two principles, Christianity 
owed its triumph over all the wisdom and honesty that 
feebly opposed its progress. These principles were,—the 

SUPPOSED NECESSITY OF DECEIVING THE VULGAR, and 
THE IMAGINED DUTY OF CULTIVATING AND PERPETU¬ 
ATING ignorance. Of the former of these principles, 
the most distinguished advocates were the whole train 
of deceptive legislators ; Moses in Palestine, Mneues (if 
he be not the same) in Egypt, Minos in Crete, Lycurgus 
in Lacedaemon, Numa in Rome, Confucius in China, 
Triptolemus, who pretended the inspirations of Ceres, 
Zaleucus of Minerva, Solon of Epimenides, Zamolxis of 
Vesta, Pythagoras, and Plato.f Euripides maintained that 
in the early state of society, some wise men insisted on 
the. necessity of darkening truth with falsehood, and of 
persuading men that there is an immortal deity, who hears 
and sees and understands our actions, whatever we may 
think of that matter ourselves.J Strabo shows at great 
length the general use and important effects of theological 
fables. “ It is not possible for a philosopher to conduct by 
reasoning a multitude of women, and of the low vulgar, 
and thus to invite them to piety, holiness, and faith ; 

* TTtoi T^c: f y. Xoyiow (piXo(ro(piac. See this expose in my Syntagma, p. 116. 

t It will be seen that I have largely availed myself of my friend’s printed but 
Unpublished work on Deisidemony. 

t Quoted in the pseudo-Piutarchean treatise, deplacitis philos. B. 1, Ch. 7. 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


33 


Dut the philosopher must also make use of superstition, 
and not omit the invention of fables, and the performance 
of wonders. For the lightning, and the aegis, and the 
trident, and the thyrsolonchal arms of the gods, are but 
fables ; and so is all ancient theology. But the founders 
of states adopted them as bugbears to frighten the weak- 
minded.”* 

Varro says plainly, “that there are many truths which 
it is useless for the vulgar to know, and many falsities 
which it is fit that the people should not know are falsi- 
ties.”f 

Paul of Tarsus, whose fourteen epistles make up the 
greater part of the bulk of the New Testament, repeatedly 
inculcates and avows the principle of deceiving the 
common people, talks of his having been upbraided by 
his own converts with being crafty and catching them 
with guile,J and of his known and wilful lies, abounding to 
the glory of God.§ For further avowals of this prin¬ 
ciple of deceit, the reader may consult the chapter of 
Admissions. 

Accessory to the avowed and consecrated principle of 
deceit , was that of ignorance. St. Paul, in the most 
explicit language, had taught and maintained the absolute 
necessity of extreme ignorance, in order to attain celestial 
wisdom, and gloried in the power of the Almighty as des¬ 
troying the wisdom of the wise, and bringing to nothing, 
the understanding of the prudent; and purposely choosing 
the foolish things, and the weak things, and the base 
things,|| as objects of his adoption, and vessels of his 
grace. And St. Peter, or whoever was the author of the 
epistles ascribed to him, inculcates the necessity of the 
most absolute prostration of understanding, and of a state 
of mind, but little removed from slobbering idiotcy, as 
necessary to the acquisition of divine knowledge ; that 
even “ as new born babes, they should desire the sincere 
milk of the word, that they might grow thereby.”1T 

Upon the sense of which doctrine, the pious and 
orthodox Tertullian glories in the egregious ridiculous- 

* Dr. Isaac Vossius, when asked what had become of a certain man of 
letters, answered bluntly, “ he has turned country parson , and is deceiving 
the vulgar .”—See Desmaiseaux’s Life of St. Evreinond. 

t August, de Cio. Dei. B. 4. 

j 2 Corinth, xii. 16. § Romans iii. 7. II 1 Corinth, i. 27. 

IT 1 Peter ii. 2. 1 Thess. ii. 7, “Even as a nuree cherisheth her chil 
dren.” Compare also 2 Corinth, xi. 23, where Paul says, “ I speak as a foo 
which he need not have said. 


34 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


ness of the Christian religion, and the debilitating' effects 
which the sincere belief of it had produced on his own 
understanding : his main argument for it, being, “ I reve¬ 
rence it, because it is contemptible ; I adore it, because it 
is absurd ; I believe it, because it is impossible.”* 

Nothing was considered more obnoxious to the cau^e 
of the gospel, than the good sense contained in the 
writings of its opponents. The inveteracy against learn¬ 
ing, of Gregory the Great, to whom this country owes its 
conversion to the gospel, was so excessive, that he 
not only was angry with an Archbishop of Vienna, for 
suffering grammar to be taught in his diocese, but studied 
to write bad Latin himself, and boasted that he scorned 
to conform to the rules of grammar, whereby he might 
seem to resemble a heathen.f The spirit of super¬ 
stition quite suppressed all the efforts of learning and 
philosophy. 

Christianity was first sent to the shores of England by 
the missionary zeal of Pope Gregory the First, not earlier 
than the sixth or the beginning of the seventh century 
Our King Alfred, who is said to have founded the Uni¬ 
versity of Oxford, in the ninth century, lamented that 
there was at that time not a priest in his dominions 
who understood Latin,:): and even for some centuries 
after, we find that our Christian bishops and prelates, 
the “ teachers, spiritual pastors, and masters,” of the 
whole Christian community, were Marksmen , i. e. they sup¬ 
plied by the sign of the cross, their inability to write 
their own names.§ 

Though philology, eloquence, poetry, and history, were 
sedulously cultivated among those of the Greeks and 
Latins, who in the fourth century still held out their 
resistance against the Christian religion: its just and 
honourable historian, Mosheim, admonishes his readers 
by no means to conclude that any acquaintance with the 
sciences had become universal in the church of Christ. || 
“ It is certain, (he adds) that the greatest part both of the 
bishops and presbyters, were men entirely destitute of 
learning and education. Besides, that savage and illiterate 
party, who looked upon all sorts of erudition, particularly 

* De came Christi Sernleri, Edit. Halae Magdeburgicse, 1770, vol. 3, p. 352 
Quoted in Syntagma, page 106. 

t Dr. Mandeville’s Free Thoughts, page 152. 

t See History of England, almost any one. 

§ Evans’s Sketches. 

II Ecclesiastical History, Cent. 4, part 2, chap. 1, sec. 5, p. 346. 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


3ii 

that of a philosophical kind, as pernicious, and even de¬ 
structive of true piety and religion, increased both in 
number and authority. The ascetics, monks, and hermits, 
augmented the strength of this barbarous faction, and not 
only the women, but also all who took solemn looks, sordid 
garments, and a love of solitude, for real piety, (and in 
this number we comprehend the generality of mankind) 
were vehemently prepossessed in their favour. ” 

Happily the security and permanency given to the once 
won triumphs of learning over her barbarous foes, by the 
nvention of the art of printing,* the now extensive 
spread of rational scepticism, and the never again to be 
surrendered achievements of superior intelligence, have 
forced upon the advocates of ignorance , the necessity of 
expressing their still too manifest suspicions and hostility 
against the cause of general learning, in more guarded and 
qualified terms. But what they still would have, the 
sameness of their principle, the identity of their purpose, 
and the sincerity of their conviction that the cultivation 
of the mind, and the continuance of the Christian religion, 
are incompatible, is indicated in the institution of an 
otherwise superfluous university in the city of London, 
for the avowed purpose of counteracting the well foreseen 
effects of suffering learning to get her pass into the world 
untrammelled with the fetters of superstition. The ad¬ 
vertisement of subscriptions to the intended King’s Col¬ 
lege, in the Times newspaper, even so late as the 16th of 
this present month of August, in which I write from this 
prison, in the cause and advocacy of intellectual free¬ 
dom, avows the principle in these words :—“ We, the 
undersigned, fully concurring in the fundamental 
principles on which it is proposed to be established, 
namely, that every principle of general education for the 
youth of a Christian community, ought to comprise in¬ 
struction in the Christian religion, as an indispensable part ; 
without which, the acquisition of other branches of know¬ 
ledge, will be conducive neither to the happiness, nor to 
the welfare of the state.” In other words, and most 

* In tho year 1444, Caxton published the first book ever printed in England. 
Tn 1474, the then Bishop of London, in a convocation of his clergy, said, “ If we 
do not destroy this dangerous invention , it will one day destroy us ” 
The reader should compare Pope Leo the Tenth’s avowal, that “ it was well 
known how profitable this fable of Christ has been to us with Mr. Beard’s 
Apology for it, in his third letter to the Rev. Robert Taylor, page 74, and Arch¬ 
deacon Paley’s declaration, that “ he could not afford to haven conscience .”— 
gee 1 ife of the Author attached to his work on the Evidences of Christianity, p. 11 
London 12mo. edit. 1826. 


36 


STATE OF PHI/.OSOPHV. 


unequivocally in the sense intended, the utmost extent of 
learning which the university propounds, will never reach 
to the rendering any of its members competent to conflict 
with the learning of the enemies of the Christian faith ; 
to produce either orators who dare attempt to vie on 
equal grounds with their orators ; readers, who dare trust 
their conscious inferiority of understanding to read , or 
writers that shall have ability or disposition to answer 
their writings. The old barbarous policy of Goth and 
Vandal ignorance, to suppress and commit to the flames 
the writings of Infidels, to decry their virtues, and to 
imprison their persons ; to shelter conscious weakness 
under airs of affected contempt; to crush the man when 
they can no longer cope with his argument, to destroy 
the reasoner, when they dare not encounter his reasoning, 
is stlU the dernier resource of a system, that cannot be 
defended by other means, but must needs be left in the 
dust from whence it sprang, whenever the mind of man 
shall be allowed to get a fair start, without being clogged 
with it. 

“ In consequence of the conquests of the Romans, there 
arose imperceptibly, but entirely by the operation of 
natural and most obvious causes, a new kind of religion, 
formed by the mixture of the ancient rites of the con¬ 
quered nations with those of the Romans. Those nations, 
who before their subjection, had their own gods, and their 
own particular religious institutions, were persuaded by 
degrees , to admit into their worship, a great number of the 
sacred rites and customs of their conquerors.”* And from 
this conjunction, helped on or retarded from time to time, 
by those exacerbations and paroxysms, which ever attend 
the fever of religion, as it afflicts the sincerely religious, 
and the policy of those wicked tacticians, who have always 
known how to raise or lower the spiritual temperament to 
their purpose, arose that heterogeneous compound of all 
that was good and all that was bad in all religions, which, 
after having existed under various names and modifica¬ 
tions, and gained by gradual usurpations a considerable 
ascendancy over any or all the idolatrous forms from 
which it had been collected, began to be called Chris¬ 
tianity. “ The wiser part of mankind, however, (says 
Mosheim) about the time of Christ’s birth, looked upon 
the whole system of religion, as a just object of contemp 
and ridicule.”! 

* Mosheim, Cent. 1. 


t Mosheim, Cent. I. Ch. 1. 


STATE OF PHILOSOPHY. 


37 


“ About the time of Christ’s appearance upon earth,* 
there were two kinds of philosophy which prevailed among 
the civilized nations. One was the philosophy of the 
Greeks, adopted also by the Romans ; and the other, that 
of the Orientals, which had a great number of votaries 
in Persia, Syria, Chaldea, Egypt, and even among the 
Jews.” 

The Greek and Roman mode of thought and reasoning, 
was designated by the simple title of Philosophy. f 

That of the eastern nations, as opposed to it, was called 
Gnosticism.} 

The Philosophy , signified only the love and pursuit of 
wisdom. 

The Gnosis , signified the perfection and full attainment 
of wisdom itself. 

The followers of both these systems, as we might natu¬ 
rally suppose, split and subdivided into innumerable sects 
and parties. It must be observed, however, that while 
the Philosophers , or those of the Grecian and Roman 
school, were infinitely divided, and held no common prin¬ 
ciple of union among themselves, some of them being 
opposed to all religion whatever ; the Gnostics , or adhe¬ 
rents of the oriental system, deduced all their various 
tenets from one fundamental principle, that of their com¬ 
mon deism, and universally professed themselves to be the 
restorers of the knowledge of God, which was lost in the 
world. St. Paul mentions and condemns both these modes 
of thought and reasoning; that of the Greeks, in his 
Epistle to the Colossians, and that of the Orientals, in his 
first to Timothy.§ 

The Gnosis, or Gnosticism, comprehends the doctrine 
of the Magi,|| the philosophy of the Persians, Chaldeans, 
and Arabians, and the wisdom of the Indians and Egyp¬ 
tians. It is distinctly to be traced in the text and doctrines 
of the New Testament. It was from the bosom of this 
pretended oriental wisdom , that the chiefs of those sects, 
which, in the three first centuries, perplexed the Christian 
church, originally issued. The name itself signified, that 
its professors taught the way to the true knowledge of the 

* Our author means any time about or near the era of Augustus. 

f H <i>tKcr.p'.ct. t H rvacr/c. 

vj Beware, lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit.—Coloss 
It 8. Avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions ot science, falsely so 
called.—1 Tim. vi. 20. 

11 The Magi, or wise men of the east, (Matthew ii. 1,) i. t. the *dio 

first got up the allegorical story of Chkishna 


x>6 ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 

Deity. Their most distinguished sect inculcated the 
notion of a triumvirate of beings, in which the Supreme 
Deity was distinguished both from the material evil prin¬ 
ciple. and from the creator of this sublunary world. 

The Philosophy, comprehended the Epicureans , the 
most virtuous and rational of men, who maintained that 
wisely consulted pleasure , was the ultimate end of man 
the Academics , who placed the height of wisdom in doubt 
and scepticism ; the Stoics , who maintained a fortitude 
indifferent to all events ; the Aristotelians , who, after their 
master, Aristotle, held the most subtle disputations con¬ 
cerning God, religion, and the social duties, maintaining 
that the nature of God resembles the principle that gives 
motion to a machine, that it is happy m the contemplation 
of itself, and entirely regardless of human affairs ; the 
Platonists , from their master, Plato , who taught the im¬ 
mortality of the soul, the doctrine of the trinity, of the 
manifestation of a divine man, who should be crucified, 
and the eternal rewards and punishments of a future life ; 
and from all these resulting, the Eclectics , who, as their 
name signifies, elected and chose what they held to be 
wise and rational, out of the tenets of all sects, and rejected 
whatever was considered futile and pernicious. The 
Eclectics held Plato in the highest reverence. Their 
college or chief establishment was at Alexandria in Egypt. 
Their founder was supposed to have been one Potamon. 
The most indubitable testimonies prove, that this Philo¬ 
sophy was in a flourishing state, at the period assigned to 
the birth of Christ. The Eclectics are the same whom we 
find described as the Therapeuts or Essenes of Philo, and 
whose sacred writings are, by Eusebius, shown to be the 
same as our gospels. Nought, but the supposed expediency 
of deceiving the vulgar,’ and of perpetuating ignorance, 
hinders the historian to whom I am, for the substance of 
this chapter, so much indebted, from acknowledging the 
fact, that in every rational sense that can be attached to 
the word, they were the authors and real founders of 
Christianity. 

CHAPTER VI. 

ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 

In studying the writings of the early advocates of Chris¬ 
tianity, and fathers of the Christian church ; where we 
should naturally look for the language that would indicate 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS 


39 


the real occurrence of the facts of the gospel, if real 
occurrences they had ever been ; not only do we find no 
such sort of language, but every where, find we, any sort 
of sophistical ambages, ramblings from the subject, and 
evasions of the very business before them, as if of purpose 
to balk our research, and insult our scepticism. If we 
travel to the - very sepulchre of Christ, we have only to 
discover that he was never there : history seeks evidence 
of his existence as a man, but finds no more trace of it, 
han of the shadow that fiitted across the wall. The star 
f Bethlehem shone not upon her path, and the order of 
the universe was suspended without her observance. She 
asks with the Magi of the east, “ where is he that is born 
King of the Jews,” and like them, finds no solution of her 
inquiry, but the guidance that guides as well to one place 
as another ; descriptions that apply to Esculapius, as well 
as to Jesus ; prophecies, without evidence that they were 
ever prophesied ; miracles, which those who are said to 
have seen, are said also to have denied that they saw ; 
narratives without authorities, facts without dates, and 
records without names. 

Where we should naturally look for the evidence of 
recentness, and a mode of expression suitable to the 
character of witnesses, or of those who had conversed 
with witnesses, we not only find no such modes of expres¬ 
sion ; but both the recorded language and actions of the 
parties, are found to be entirely incongruous, and out of 
keeping with the supposition of such a character. We 
find the discourses of the very first preachers and martyrs 
of this religion, outraging all chronology, by claiming the 
honours of an even then remote antiquity, for the doctrines 
they taught. 

1. We find St. Stephen,* the very first martyr of Chris¬ 
tianity, in the very city where its stupendous events are 
supposed to have happened, and, as our Bible chronologies 
inform us, within the very year in which they happened ; 
and on the very occasion on which above all others that 
could be imagined, he must, and would have borne testi¬ 
mony to them, as constituting the evidences of his faith, 
the justification of his conduct, and the grounds of his 
martyrdom; nevertheless, bearing no such testimony , 
yea ! not so much as glancing at those events, but found- 

* Stephen, a name of the same order as Nicodemus, Philip, Andrew, Alex- 
and«r, &c., entirely of Grecian origin, ascribed to dews, who never had such 
names, nor any like them 


40 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


ing his whole argument on the ancient legends of the Jew¬ 
ish superstition. What a falling off is there ! 

2. We find St. Paul, the very first Apostle of the 
Gentiles, expressly avowing that “ he was made a minister 
of the gospel, which had already been preached to every 
creature under heaven ;” (Col. i. 23,) preaching a god 
manifest in the flesh, who-had been “ believed on in the 
world,” (1 Tim. iii. 16.) before the commencement of his 
ministry ; and who therefore could have been no such 
person as the man of Nazareth, who had certainly no 
been preached at that time, nor generally believed on in 
the world, till ages after that time. 

3. We find him, moreover, out of all character and con¬ 
sistency of circumstance, assuming the most intolerant 
airs of arrogance, and snubbing Peter at Antioch, as if he 
were nobody, or had absolutely been preaching a false 
doctrine, of which Paul were the more proper judge, and 
the higher authority. A circumstance absolutely demon¬ 
strative that the Peter of the Acts was no such person as 
the Peter of the Gospels, who would certainly not have 
suffered himself to be called over the coals, by one who 
was but a new setter up in the business, but would in all 
probability have cut his ear off, rapt out a good oath or 
two, or knock him down with his keys, for such audacious 
presumption. 

4. It is most essentially remarkable, that as these Acts 
of the Apostles bear internal evidence of being a much 
later production than the epistles and gospels, and are 
evidently mixed up with the journals of real adventures of 
some travelling missionaries ; they are not mentioned with 
the epistles and gospels which had constituted the ancient 
writings of the Therapeutse. Chrysostom, Bishop of Con¬ 
stantinople, (A. D. 393,) informs us, that at that time, “this 
book was unknown to many, and by others it was des¬ 
pised.” 

5. Mill, one of the very highest authorities in biblical 
literature, tells us, “that the gospels were soon spread 
abroad, and came into all men’s hands ; but the case was 
somewhat different with the other books of the New Tes¬ 
tament, particularly the Acts of the Apostles, which 
were not thought to be so important, and had few trans¬ 
cribers.” 

6. And Beausobre acknowledges, that the book of 
the Acts, had not at the beginning in the eastern churches 
the same authority with the gospels and the eoistles. 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


41 


7. Lardner, (vol. 2, p. 605,) would rather give St. 
Chrysostom the lie, than surrender to the pregnant con¬ 
sequence of so fatal an admission. The gospels were 
soon received, for they were ready before the world was 
awake. The Acts were a second attempt. Where we 
should look for marks of distinction, as definite as those 
which must necessarily and eternally exist between truth 
and falsehood, between divine wisdom and human weak¬ 
ness, between what man knew by the suggestion of his 
own unassisted shrewdness, and what he only could have 
known by the further instruction of divine revelation ; not 
only find we no such lines or characters of distinction, but 
alas ! in the stead and place thereof, we find the most entire 
and perfect amalgamation, an entire surrender of all chal¬ 
lenge to distinction, a complete capitulation, going over, and 
“ hail-fellow-well-met ” conjunction, of Jesus and Jupiter. 
Christianity and Paganism are frankly avowed to have 
been never more distinct from each other, than six from 
half-a-dozen, never to have been at variance or divided, 
but by the mere accidental substitution of one set of 
names for the other, and the very trifling and immaterial 
misunderstanding, that the new nomenclature had occa¬ 
sioned. 

“ Some of the ancientest writers of the church have not 
scrupled expressly to call the Athenian Socrates, and 
some others of the best of the heathen moralists, by the 
name of Christians, and to affirm, that as the law was 
as it were a schoolmaster, to bring the Jews unto Christ, 
so true moral philosophy was to the Gentiles a prepa¬ 
rative to receive the gospel.”— Clarke’s Evidences of Natural 
and Revealed Religion , p. 284. 

8. * “ And those who lived according to the Logos, (says 
Clemens Alexandrinus) were really Christians, though 
they have been thought to be Atheists ; as Socrates and 
Heraclitus were among the Greeks, and such as resembled 
them.” 

9. f For God, says Origen, revealed these things to them, 
and whatever things have been well spoken. 

10. | And if there had been any one to have collected 

* Kai 01 titxa Xoys (itwoavTtc, yroiariavoi tiat, x’av affooi tvoutd-d'tjnar oior fi 
EX?.tjnt r/sv 2 wxgarijg xiu HgaxXsirug xai oi ouoioi avrotc .— Clemens Alex. Strom. 

f 0 &eog ya() avroig ravra, xut oaa xukwg XtXexTai tipavsQwOs. —Orig. ad Cels. 

Bib. 6. . . . , 

% Quod si extitisset aliquis qui veritatem sparsam per singulos, per sectasque 
didusam colligeret in unum, ac redigeret in corpus, is profeclo non dissentiret 
a. nobis.”— Lactant , lib. 7. 


42 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


the truth that was scattered and diffused, says Lactan- 
tius, among sects and individuals, into one, and to have 
reduced it into a system, there would, indeed, have been 
no difference between him and us. 

11. * And if Cicero’s works, says Arnobius, had been 
read as they ought to have been by the heathens, there 
would have been no need of Christian writers. . 

12. f “ That, in our times is the Christian Religion, 
(says St. Augustin,) which to know and follow is the most 
sure and certain health, called according to that name, 
but not according to the thing itself, of which it is the 
name ; for the thing itself, which is now called the 
Christian Religion, really was known to the ancients, 
nor was wanting at any time from the beginning of the 
human race, until the time when Christ came in the flesh, 
from whence the true religion, which had previously 
existed, began to be called Christian ; and this in our days 
is the Christian religion, not as having been wanting in 
former times, but as having in later times received this 
name.” 

13. J u What then ? and do the philosophers recommend 
nothing like the precepts of the gospel ?” asks Lactantius. 
Yes, indeed, they do very many, and often approach to 
truth ; only their precepts have no weight, as being merely 
human and devoid of that greater and divine authority ; 
and nobody believes, because the hearer thinks himself as 
much a man, as he is who prescribes them. 

14. Monsieur Daillee, in his most excellent treatise, 
called, La Religion Catholique Romaine , instituee par Numci 
Pompile , demonstrates, that “ the Papists took their idol¬ 
atrous worship of images, as well as all other ceremonies 
from the old heathen religion,” and 

15. Ludovicus Vivus, a learned Catholic, confesses, 

* So quoted and translated by Tindal, in his “ Christianity as Old as the 
Creation,” p. 397. 

t Ea est nostris temporibus Christiana religio, quam cognoscere ac sequi 
Beeurissima et certissima salus est : secundum hoc nomen dictum est non 
secundum ipsam rem cujus hoc nomen est: nam res ipsa quae nunc Christiana 
religio nuncapatur erat et apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis humani, 
quouseue ipse Christos veniret in came, unde vera religio quae "jam erat caepit 
appellari Christiana. Haec est nostris temboribus Christiana religio, non quia 
prioribus temporibus non fuit, sed quia posterioribus hoc nomen accepit.—Opera 
Augustini, vol. 1, p. 12. Basil edit. 1529. 

X <4uid ergo, nihil ne illi (philosophi) simile praecipiunt ? Immo permulta et ad 
veritatem frequenter accedunt. Sed nihil ponderis habent ila praecepta, quia sunt 
humana, et auctoritate majori id est divina, ilia carerit. Nemo lgitur credit ; quia 
tarn se hominem putat esse qui audit, quam est ille qui praecipit.—Lactant lib. 3, ut 
Citat Clarke, p. 301 • 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


43 


that “ there could be found no other difference between 
Paganish and Popish worship before images, but only 
this, that names and titles are changed.”— Quoted in 
Blount's Philostratus , p. 113, 114. 

16. * Epiphanius freely admits, of all the heretical forms 
of Christianity, that is, of all that differed from his own, 
that they were derived from the heathen mythology. 

17. The Manichees, the most, distinguished of all who 
dissented from the established church, and unquestionably 
the most intelligent and learned of all who ever professed 
and called themselves Christians, boasted of being in 
possession of a work called the Theosophy, or the 
Wisdom of God ; (and such a work we actually find quoted 
by St. Paul, 1 Corinth. 2,) in which the purport was to 
show,f that Judaism, Paganism, and Manieheeism, i. e. 
as they understood it, Christianity , were one and the same 
religion, and 

18. Even our own orthodox Doctor Burnet, in his 
treatise De Statu Mortuorum , purposely written in Latin, 
that it might serve for the instruction of the clergy only, 
and not come to the knowledge of the laity, because, as 
he says, u too much light is hurtful for weak eyes not 
only justifies, but recommends the practice of the most 
consummate hypocrisy, and that too, on the most awful ot 
all subjects ; and would have his clergy seriously preach 
and maintain the reality and eternity of hell torments, 
even though they should believe nothing of the sort them- 
selves.j: 

What is this, but an edition, by a Christian bishop, of 
the very sentiment which Cicero reproves in Pagan phi¬ 
losophers :—“ Quid ? ii qui dixerunt totam de Diis iin- 
mortalibus opinionem fictarn esse ab hominibus sapientibus, 
Reipublicse causa, ut quos Ratio non posset, eos ad officium 
Religio duceret, nonne omnem religionem funditus sus- 
tulerunt.”—De Nat. Deor. lib. 1, ch. 42, p. 405.—Can 
there be any doubt that the Rev. Dr. Burnet, with all his 
cant about Christianity and truth, was afraid to promul¬ 
gate the latter sincerely and openly to the people ? 

19. Dr. Mosheim, among his many and invaluable 

* Ex yaQ tXXtjvixiov pv&wv nattai ai aiqsasig ovvaScurai tavraig Ttjv 7iXavt]i 
tccTfSaXor. —Hier. 26, n. 16, p. 98, D. 

t Ev tj ntiQarut Seixwrai tov i^aiouov xai tov f XX^rtOftov xcu tov fiavtxatayo> 
tv tivoti xai to ixvto fioyutx. —Fabricius, ton). 1, p. 354. _ . 

% Si me tamen audlre velis, rnallern te paenas has dicere indefinitas quam infimtas. 

_ged veniet dies, cum non minus absurda, habebitur et odiosa hsec opinio quam 

transubstantiate hodie.—Do Statu Mort. by Thomas Burnet, D. D., p. 304. 


44 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


writing’s, published a dissertation, showing the reasons 
and causes of supposititious writings in the first and 
second century. And all own, says Lardner, that Chris¬ 
tians of all sorts were guilty of this fraud ; indeed, we may 
say, it was one great fault of the times.* 

20. f u And in the last place, (says the great Casaubon,) 
it mightily affects me, to see how many there were in the 
earliest times of the church, who considered it as a capital 
exploit, to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own 
inventions, in order that the new doctrine might be more 
readily allowed by the wise among the Gentiles. These 
officious lies, they were wont to say, were devised for a 
good end. From which source, beyond question, sprung 
nearly innumerable books, which that and the following 
age saw published by those who were far from being bad 
men,} (for we are not speaking of the books of heretics,; 
under the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the 
apostles, and other saints.” 

The reader has only to satisfy himself with his own 
solution of the question emergent from such an admission. 
If those who palmed what they knew to be a lie, upon the 
world, under the name and sanction of a God of truth, are 
to be considered as still worthy of our confidence, and far 
from being bad men: who are the bad men ? Illud me quo- 
que vehementer movet. 

21. “ There is scarce any church in Christendom at this 
day, (says one of the church’s most distinguished orna¬ 
ments) which doth not obtrude, not only plain falsehoods, 
but such falsehoods as will appear to any free spirit, pure 
contradictions and impossibilities ; and that with the same 
gravity, authority, and importunity, as they do the holy 
oracles of God.”—Dr. Henry Moore. 

Here again emerge the anxious queries.—Why should 
not a man have a free spirit.? and what credit can be due 
to the holy oracles of God, standing on no better evidence 

* Lardner, vol. 4, p. 524. 

t “ Postremo illud quoque me vehementer movet, quod videam primis 
ecclesiae temporibus, quarn plurimos extitisse, qui facinus palmarium judi- 
cahant, caelestem veritatem, figmentis suis ire adjutum, quo facilius nova 
doctrina a gentium sapientibus adrnitteretur. Officiosa haec mendacia vocabant 
bono fine exeogitata. Quo ex fonte dubio procul, sunt orti libri fere sexcenti, 
quos ilia aetas et proxima viderunt, ab hominibus minime malis, (nam de 
haereticorum libris non ioquimur) sub nomine etiam Domini Jesu Christi et apos- 
toloruin aliorumque sanctorum publicatos.”—Casaubon, quoted in Lardner, 
vol. 4, p. 524. 

X Mosheim treats these holy forgers with the same tenderness, “ they were men, 
(he sgys) whose intentions were not bad.”—Eccl, Hist. vol. 1, p. 109. 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


45 


of being* such, than the testimony of those, who we know 
have palmed the grossest falsehoods on us, with the same 
gravity, and as of equal authority with those holy oracles ? 
and 

22. “ This opinion has always been in the world, that to 
settle a certain and assured estimation upon that which 
is good and true, it is necessary to remove out of the way, 
whatsoever may be an hindrance to it. Neither ought 
we to wonder, that even those of the honest innocent 
primitive times made use of these deceits, seeing for a 
good end they made no scruple to forge whole books.”— 
Daille, on the Use of the Fathers, b. 1, c. 3. 

What good end was that, which needed to be prosecuted 
by the forgery of whole books ? 

23. u But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness 
of God , what shall we say ?”■—Rom. iii. 5. u For if the truth 
of God hath more abounded through my lie , unto his glory , 
why yet am / also judged as a sinner ?”—Romans, iii. 7. 

24. The apostolic father, Hermas , who was the fellow- 
labourer of St. Paul in the work of the ministry ; who is 
greeted as such in the New Testament : and whose 
writings are expressly quoted* as of divine inspiration 
by the early fathers, ingenuously confesses that lying 
was the easily-besetting sin of a Christian. His words 
are, 

“ 0 Lord, I never spake a true word in my life, but I 
have always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed a lie for 
truth to all men, and no man contradicted me, but all gave 
credit to my words.” To which the holy angel, whom he 
addresses, condescendingly admonishes him, that “as the 
lie was up, now, he had better keep it up, and as in time 
it would come to be believed, it would answer as well as 
truth.” 

25. Even Christ himself is represented in the gospels 
as inculcating the necessity, and setting the example of 
deceiving and imposing upon the common people, and 
purposely speaking unto them in parables and double 
entendres, u that seeeing , they might see, and not perceive ; and 
hearing , they might hear , but not understand .”—Mark, iv.. 12. 

* The words of the text are, “ Now thou hearest, take care from henceforth, 
that even those things which thou hast formerly spoken falsely, may by thy 
present truth, receive credit* For even those things may be credited ; if for 
the time to come, thou shalt speak the truth, and by so doing, thou mayst attain 
unto life.”—Archbishop Wake’s Genuine Epistles of the Apostolic Fathers, in 
loco. See this article, where Hermas occurs in the regular succession of apos¬ 
tolic fathers, in this Diegesis. 


46 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITER? 


26. And divine inspiration, so far from involving- any 
guarantee that truth would be spoken under its immediate 
influence, is in the scripture itself, laid down as the 
criterion whereby we may know that nothing in the shape 
of truth is to be expected :— u Jind if the prophet be deceived 
when he hath spoken a thing , /, the Lord , have deceived that 
prophet. —Ezek. xiv. 9. 

27. When it was intended that King Ahab should be 
seduced to his inevitable destruction, God is represented 
as having employed his faith and piety as the means of 
his overthrow :—“ Now , therefore , the Lord hath put a lying 
spirit in the mouth of all thy prophets.” —1 Kings, xxii. 23. 
There were four hundred of them, all speaking under the 
influence of divine inspiration, all having received the 
spirit from on high, all of them the servants of God, and 
engaged in obeying none other than his godly motions, 
yet lying as fast as if the father of lies himself had com¬ 
missioned them. Such a set of fellows, so employed, 
cannot at least but make us suspect some sort of sarcasm 
in our Te Deum, where we say, “ the goodly fellowship of 
the prophets praise thee.” The devil would hardly think 
such sort of praise, a compliment. Happy would it have 
been for Ahab, had he been an Infidel. 

28. The New Testament, however, one might hope, as 
being a second revelation from God, would have given 
him an opportunity of u repenting of the evil he had spoken ;” 
but alas ! orthodoxy itself is constrained to tremble and 
adore, before that dreadful declaration, than which no 
religion that ever was in the world besides, ever contained 
any thing half so horrible :—“ For this cause , God shall send 
them strong delusion that they should believe a lie , that they all 
might be damned.”—2 Thess. ii. 11, 12. Such was to be 
the effect of divine revelation. 

Should then, our further prosecution of the inquiry 
proposed by this Diegesis, lead us to the conviction that 
the amount of evidence for the pretensions of the Chris¬ 
tian religion, is as strong as it may be, it will yet remain 
for an inquiry, which we shall never venture to prosecute, 
whether that strength of evidence itself, may not be strong 
delusion. Strong enough must that delusion needs be, 
by which Omnipotence would intend to ; mpose on the 
credulity and weakness of his creatures. Is it for those 
who will defend the apparent inferences of such a passage, 
to point out any thing in the grossest conceits, of the 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 47 

grossest forms of Paganism, that might not have admitted 
of a palliative interpretation ? 

29. St. Paul himself, in an ambiguous text, either 
openly glories in the avowal, or but faintly repels the 
charge of practising a continued system of imposture and 
dissimulation. “ For unto the Jews , (says he) I became as 
a Jew , that I might gain the Jews. To the weak, became I as 
weak, that I might gain the weak; I am made all things to all 
men.” —1 Corinth, ix. 22. 

30. And in a passage still more pregnant with inference 
to our great inquiry, (2 Galat. ii.) he distinguishes the 
gospel which he preached on ordinary occasions, from 
“ that gospel which he preached privately to them that were of 
reputation.” 

31. Dr. Mosheim admits, that the Platonists and Pytha¬ 
goreans held it as a maxim, that it was not only lawful, 
but praiseworthy to deceive, and even to use the expedient 
of a lie, in order to advance the cause of truth and piety. 
The Jews who lived in Egypt, had learned and received 
this maxim from them, before the coming of Christ, as 
appears incontestibly from a multitude of ancient records, 
and the Christians were infected from both these sources, 
with the same pernicious error.—Mosheim, vol. 1. p. 197. 

32. In the fourth century, the same great author in¬ 
structs us “ that it was an almost universally adopted 
maxim, that it was an act of virtue to deceive and lie, 
when by such means the interests of the church might be 
promoted.”—Vol. 1. p. 198. 

33. And as it regards the fifth century, he continues, 
the simplicity and ignorance of the generality in those 
times, furnished the most favourable occasion for the ex¬ 
ercise of fraud ; and the impudence of impostors in con¬ 
triving false miracles, was artfully proportioned to the 
credulity of the vulgar : while the sagacious and the wise, 
who perceived these cheats, were overawed into silence 
oy the dangers that threatened their lives and fortunes, 
if they should expose the artifice.”—Mosheim, Eccl. Hist, 
vol. 2. p. 11. 

34. Nor must we, in any part of our subsequent investi¬ 
gation, quit our hold on the important admission of .the 
fact supplied to us by the research of that most eminent 
of critics, the great Semler —that the sacred books of the 
Christian Scriptures (from which ciicumstance, it may bt 
they derive their name of sacred ) were, during the earl) 


48 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


ages of Christianity, really kept sacred. u The Christian 
Doctors (says he) never brought their sacred books before 
the common people ; although people in general have been 
wont to think otherwise ; during the first ages, they were 
in the hands of the clergy only.”* I solemnly invoke the 
rumination of the reaider to the inferences with which this 
admission teems. I write, but cannot think for him. The 
light is in his hand : what it shall show him, must depend 
on his willingness to see. 

35. How the common people were christianized, we 
gather from a remarkable passage which Mosheim has 
preserved for us, in the life of Gregory, surnamed Thau- 
maturgus, that is, the wonder-worker : the passage is as 
follows :f 

When Gregory perceived that the simple and unskilled 
multitude persisted in their worship of images, on account 
of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which they 
enjoyed at the Pagan festivals, he granted them a permis¬ 
sion to indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in cele¬ 
brating the memory of the holy martyrs, hoping, that in 
process of time, they would return, of their own accord, 
to a more virtuous and regular course of life.” The his¬ 
torian remarks, that there is no sort of doubt, that by this 
permission, Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, 
and feast at the tombs of the martyrs, upon their respec¬ 
tive festivals, and to do every thing which the Pagans 
were accustomed to do in their temples, during the feasts 
celebrated in honour of their gods.”—Mosheim, vol. 1. 
Cent. 2. p. 202. 

36. This accommodating and truly Christian spirit was 
carried to such an extent, that the images of the Pagan 
deities were in some instances allowed to remain, and 
continued to receive divine honours, in Christian churches. 
The images of the sybills, of which Gallseus has given us 
prints, were retained in the Christian church of Sienna.”J 

—Bell’s Panth. 2. 237. 

* Christiani doctores non in vulgus prodebant libros sacros, licet soleant plerique 
aliter opinari, erant tanturn in manibus clericorurn, priora per ssecula.— Dissertat. 
in Tertul. 1. § 10. note 57. 

t Cum animadvertisset Gregorius quod ob corporeas delectationes et vo- 
iuptates, rumples et imperitum vulgns in simulacrorum cultus errore perma¬ 
nent—* perm isit eis, ut in memoriam et recordationem sanctorum in arty rum 
sese oblectarent, et in laetitiam effunderentur, quod successu temporis aliquando 
fuiurum esset, ut sua sponte, ad honestiorem et accuratiorem vitae rationem, 
transirent.” 

X The head of the Jupiter Clympius of Phidias, carved in the mahogany tran 
ser% officiates :.t this day, as locum tenens for God Almighty, in the chapel of 
King’s College, Cambridge. 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


49 


Among the sacred writings which the church has seen 
fit to deem apochryphal, there was a book attributed to 
Christ himself, in which he declares that he was in noway 
against the heathen gods.— Jones on the Canon , vol. J. 
p. 11. Origen vindicates, without denying the charge 
of Celsus, u that the Christian Religion contained nothing 
but what Christians held in common with heathens: 
nothing that was new, or truly great.”— Bellamy's Transla¬ 
tion , chap. 4. 

37. Even under the primitive discipline, and before the 
conversion of Rome, while the church was cautious of 
admitting into her worship any thing that had a relation 
to the old idolatry: yet even in this period, Gregory 
Thaumaturgus, is commended by his namesake of Nyssa, 
for changing the Pagan festivals into Christian holidays, 
the better to draw the heathens to the religion of Christ. * 

38. Thus Paulinus, a convert from Paganism, of sena- 
torian rank, celebrated for his parts and learning, and who 
became Bishop of JVola , apologizes for setting up certain 
paintings in his episcopal church, dedicated to Felix the 
Martyr, “ that it was done with a design to draw the rude 
multitude, habituated to the profane rites of Paganism, to 
a knowledge and good opinion of the Christian doctrine, 
by learning from these pictures, what they were not capa¬ 
ble of learning from books; i. e. the Lives and Acts of 
Christian Saints.”—See Works of Paulinus , B. 9. 

39. Pope Gregory, called the Great, about two centu¬ 
ries later, makes the same apology for images or pictures , 
in churches; declaring them to have been introduced for 
the sake of the Pagans; that those who did not know, and 
could not read the Scriptures, might learn from those 
images and pictures what they ought to worship.f 

40. Paulinus declares the object of these - images and 
pictures to have been, “ to draw the heathens the more 
easily to the faith of Christ, since by flocking in crowds to 
gaze at the finery of these paintings, and by explaining to 
each other the stories there represented, they would gra¬ 
dually acquire a reverence for that religion, which inspired 
so much virtue and piety into its professors.” 

* Nyssen, in Vita Greg. Thaumat. cit. Middleton, Letter from Rome, 236. 
The good nature of Gregory is the more commendable, inasmuch as it was a 
grateful return of the like degree of indulgence as had been shown to himself. 
He was taken in to, the Christian ministry, and consecrated a bishop of Christ, 
and wrought miracles, even while he continued a Pagan, and was entirely ignorant 
' of the Christian doctrine, 
f Epist. 1. 9, c. 9 


6 


50 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


41. But these compliances, as Bishop Stillingflect ob¬ 
serves, were attended with very bad consequences ; since 
Christianity became at last , by that means , to be nothing else but 
reformed Paganism , as to its divine worship.* 

42. The learned Christian advocate, M. Turretin, in 
describing the state of Christianity in the lemrth century, 
has a well turned rhetoricism, the point of which is, “that 
it was not so much the empire that was brought over to 
ihe faith, as the faith that was brought over to the em¬ 
pire: not the Pagans who were converted to Christianity, 
but Christianity that was converted to Paganism.”! 

43. u From this era, then, according to the accounts of 
all writers, though Christianity became the public and es¬ 
tablished religion of the government, yet it was forced to 
sustain a perpetual struggle for many ages, against the 
obstinate efforts of Paganism , which was openly espoused 
by some of the emperors; publicly 1 derated and privately 
favoured by others; and connived at in some degree by 
all.”— Middleton's Letters from Rome. 

44. Within thirty years after Constantine, the emperor 
Julian entirely restored Paganism, and abrogated all the 
laws which had been made against it. Though it is 
utterly untrue that he was ever guilty of any act of perse¬ 
cution or intolerance towards Christians.} The three 
emperors, who next in order succeeded Julian, i. e. Jovian , 
Valentinian , Valens; though they were Christians by pro¬ 
fession, were yet wholly indifferent and neutral between 
the two religions; granting an equal indulgence and tole¬ 
ration to them both. So that they may be as fairly 
claimed to be Pagan as Christian emperors. Nor had 
even Constantine himself, the first for whom the designa¬ 
tion of a Christian emperor has been challenged, accepted 
the rite of Christian baptism before he was dying, or ever 
in his life ceased to be, and to officiate, as a priest of the 
gods. 

Gratian, the seventh emperor from him, and fourth 
after Julian, though a sincere believer, never thought fit to 
annul what Julian had restored. He was the first however 

* See Bishop Stilling fleet’s Defence of the charge of Idolatry against the 
Romanists, vol. 5 of his Works, p. 459, where the reader will find the charge 
demonstrably proved against the church of Rome. 

+ “ Non imperio ad fidem adduoto, sed et imperii pompa ecclesiam inficiente. 
Non ethnieis ad Christum converts, sed et Christ! religione ad Ethnicie fornianc 
depravata.”—Oral. Acadcm. Be Variis Christ. Rel. fatis. 

X See vindication of his character, in the Lion, vol. l,No. 18. 12th Letter 
from Oakham. 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 51 

of the emperors who refused the title and habit of the 
Pontifex Maximus, as incompatible with the Christian 
character. So that till then, up to the year 384, there 
was no actual disunion between Christ and Belial; no 
evidence of miracles or strength of reason had been 
offered to attest the superiority of the Christian religion, 
to demonstrate that there was any material distinction 
between that and Paganism, or to determine the mind of 
any one of the Roman emperors, that there was an incon¬ 
sistency in being a Christian and a Pagan at the same 
time. 

45. The affront put by Gratian upon the Pagan priest¬ 
hood, in refusing to wear their pontifical robe, was so 
highly resented, that one of them is recorded to have said, 
since the emperor refuses to be our Pontifex Maximus , we will 
very shortly take care that our Pontifex shall be Maximus. 

46. In the subsequent reign of Theodosius, whose laws 
were generally severe upon the Pagans, Symmachus, the 
governor of Rome, presented a memorial in the strongest 
terms, and in the name of the Senate and people of Rome , for 
leave to replace the altar of victory in the senate house, 
whence it had been removed by Gratian. This memorial 
was answered by St. Ambrose , who in a letter upon it to 
the emneror, observes, that, “when the petitioners had so 
many temples and altars of their own, in all the streets of 
Rome, where they might freely offer their sacrifices, it 
seemed to be a mere insult on Christianity, to demand still 
one altar more; and especially in the senate house, where 
the greater part were then Christians.” This petition was 
rejected by Valentinian , against the* advice of all his 
council, but was granted presently after by the Christian 
emperor, Eugenius, who murthered and succeeded him. 

Thus entering on the fifth century, and further surely 
we need not descend: we have the surest and most une 
quivocal demonstration, that Christianity, as a religion 
distinct from the ancient Paganism, up to that time, had 
gained no extensive footing in the world. After that pe 
riod, all that there was of religion in the world, merges in 
the palpable obscure of the dark ages. The pretence to 
an argument for the Christian religion, from any thing 
either miraculous or extraordinary in its propagation, is 
therefore, a sheer defiance of all evidence and reason 
whatever. 

47. “ Pantaenus, the head of the Alexandrian school, 
was probably the first who enriched the church with a 


52 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


version of the sacred writings, which has been lost 
among the ruins of time.— Mosh. vol. I. 186.— Compare 
with No. 34 in this Chapter. 

48. “ They all, (i. e. all the fathers of the second cen¬ 
tury) attributed a double sense to the words of Scripture, 
the one obvious and literal, the other hidden and myste¬ 
rious, which lay concealed, as it were, under the veil of 
the outward letter. The former they treated with the 
utmost neglect,” &c.— Ibid. 186. 

49. “ God also hath made us able ministers of the New 
Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit: for the let¬ 
ter killeth, but ^he spirit giveth life.”—2 Corinth, iii. 6. 

50. “ It is here to be attentively observed (says Mo- 
sheim, speaking of the church in the second century) that 
the form used in the exclusion of heinous offenders from 
the society of Christians, was, at first, extremely simple; 
but was, however, imperceptibly altered, enlarged by an 
addition of a vast multitude of rites, and new-modelled ac¬ 
cording to the discipline used in the ancient mysteries.” 
— Mosh. vol. I. p. 199. 

51. “ The profound respect that was paid to the Greek 
and Roman mysteries , and the extraordinary sanctity that 
was attributed to them, induced the Christians, (of the 
second century) to give their religion a mystic air , in order 
to put it upon an equal footing, in point of dignity, with 
that of the Pagans. For this purpose, they gave the 
name of mysteries to the institutions of the gospel, and 
decorated, particularly the holy sacrament, with that 
solemn title. They used, in that sacred institution, as also 
in that of baptism, several of the terms employed in the 
heathen mysteries , and proceeded so far at length, as even 
to adopt some of the rites and ceremonies of which those 
renowned mysteries consisted.”— Ibid. 204. 

52. “ It may be further observed, that the custom ol 
teaching their religious doctrines, by images, actions, 
signs, and other sensible representations, which prevailed 
among: the Egyptians, and indeed in almost all the eastern 
nations, was another cause of the increase of external rites 
in the church.”— Ibid. 204. 

53. “ Among the human means that contributed to mul¬ 
tiply the number of Christians, and extend the limits of 
the church in the third century, we shall find a great 
variety of causes uniting their influence, and contributing 
jointly to this happy purpose. Among these must be 
reckoned the geal and labours of Origen, and the different 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


53 


works which were published by learned and pious men in 
defence of the gospel. If among the causes of the pro¬ 
pagation of Christianity, there is any place due to pious 
frauds, it is certain that they merit a very small part of 
the honour of having contributed to this glorious purpose, 
since they were practised by few, and that very rarely.”* 
—Moshcim , vol. I, p. 246. 

54: u Origen, invited from Alexandria by an Arabian 
prince, converted by his assiduous labours a certain tribe 
of wandering Arabs to the Christian faith. The Goths, 
a fierce and warlike people, received the knowledge of the 
gospel by the means of certain Christian doctors, sent 
thither from Ma. The holy lives of these venerable 
teachers, and the miraculous powers with which they 
were endowed, attracted the esteem, even of a people 
educated to nothing but plunder and devastation, and 
absolutely uncivilized by letters or science: and their 
authority and influence became so great, and produced m 
process of time such remarkable effects, that a great part 
of this barbarous people professed themselves the disciples 
of Christ, and put off, in a manner , that ferocity which had 
been so natural to them.”—Vol. I, 247. 

55. “ Among the superhuman means,” which, after all 
that he has admitted, this writer thinks can alone suffi¬ 
ciently account for the successful propagation of the 
gospel, u we not only reckon the intrinsic force of celestial 
truth, and the piety and fortitude of those who declared 
it to the world, but also that especial and interposing pro¬ 
vidence, which by dreams and visions , presented to the minds 
of many, who were either inattentive to the Christian 
doctrine, or its professed enemies, touched their hearts 
with a conviction of the truth, and a sense of its import¬ 
ance; and engaged them without delay to profess them¬ 
selves the disciples of Christ.” 

56. “ To this may also be added, the healing oj diseases. 
and other miracles, which many Christians were yet 
enabled to perform, by invoking the name of the Divine 
Saviour.— Mosheim, vol. I, p. 245. 

On these last four most important admissions; the 
reader will observe, that it may be enough to remark, 
that the principle on which this work is conducted, so 

* How must every ingenuous and virtuous sensibility in man’s nature, have 
smarted under the distress of being obliged to use language like this. I know the 
man who hath preferred tile fate of felons, and would rather still, pass only from 
the prison to the tprnb, than he would use the like. 

6 


54 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


well expressed in its motto, that philosophy which is 
agreeable to nature , approve and cherish; but that which 
pretends to commerce with the deity , avoid! pledges us to view 
all references to supernatural agency, as being no proof 
of such agency, but as demonstration absolute of tbe 
idiotish stupidity, or arrant knavery of the party, rest¬ 
ing any cause whatever on such references. It is not 
in the former of these predicaments, that such an historian 
as Mosheim, can be impeached; nor could either the 
emoluments or dignities of the theological chair at Helm- 
stadt, or the chancellorship of the University of Gottingen, 
allay the smartings of sentiment, and the anguish of con¬ 
scious meanness, in holding them at so dear a price, as 
the necessity of making such statements, of thus selling 
his name to the secret scorn of all whose praise was worth 
ambition, thus outraging his own convictions, thus con¬ 
flicting with his own statements; thus bowing down his 
stupendous strength of talent, to harmonize with the fig¬ 
ments of drivelling idiotcy, making learning do homage to 
ignorance, and the clarion that should have roused the 
sleeping world, pipe down to concert with the rattle-trap 
and Jew’s-harp of the nursery. 

Of the pious frauds, which this historian admits to 
share only a small part of the honour of contributing to 
the propagation of the gospel, because they were “ prac¬ 
tised by so few;” he had not the alleviation to his feelings, 
of being able to be ignorant that he had falsified that 
statement in innumerable passages of this and his other 
writings; and that his whole history of the church, from 
first to last, contains not so much as a single instance, of 
one of the fathers of the church, or first preachers of the 
gospel, who did not practice those pious frauds. 

57. “ The authors who have treated of the innocence 
and sanctity of the primitive Christians, have fallen into 
the error of supposing them to have been unspotted 
models of piety and virtue, and a gross error indeed it 
ts, as the strongest testimonies too evidently prove.”— 
Ibid. p. 120. 

58. * “ Such was the license of inventing, so headlong 
the readiness of believing, in the first ages, that the 
credibility of transactions derived from thence, must have 
been hugely doubtful: nor has the world only, but the 

* “ Tanta fuit primis saeculis fingendi lioentia. tarn prona in credendo facilitas, ut 
re rum gestarurn tides exinde graviter laboraverat. Neque enim orbis terrarum tan- 
tum, feed et Dei ecclesia de temporibus suis mysticis merito quaeratur.’-—Fell, Bish' 
op of Oxford, quoted by Lardner and Tmdal. 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


55 


church of God also, has reasonably to complain of its 
mystical times.”— Bishop Fell , so rendered in the Author's 
Syntagma, p. 34. 

59. “ The extravagant notions which obtained among 
the Christians of the primitive ages, (says Dupin) sprang 
from the opinions of the Pagan philosophers, and from 
the mysteries, which crack-brained men put on the history 
of the Old and New-Testament, according to their imagi¬ 
nations. The more extraordinary these opinions were, 
the more did they relish, and the better did they like 
them; and those who invented them, published them 
gravely, as great mysteries to the simple, who were all 
disposed to receive them.”— Dupin's Short History of the 
Church , vol. 2. c. 4, as quoted by Tindal , p. 224. 

60. “ They have but little knowledge of the Jewish 
nation, and of the primitive Christians, who obstinately 
refuse to believe that such sort of notions could not pro¬ 
ceed from thence; for on the contrary, it was their very 
character to turn the whole scripture into allegory.”— Arch¬ 
bishop Wake's Life of the apostle Barnabas , p. 73. 

Of the miraculous powers with which Mosheim* 
would persuade us that the Christians of the third century 
were still endowed; we have but to confront him with his 
own conflicting statement, on the 11th page of his second 
volume: concluding with his own reflection on that ad¬ 
mission:—“ Thus does it generally happen in human life, 
that when danger attends the discovery and the profession 
of the truth, the prudent are silent, the multitude believe, 
and impostors triumph.” 

Of the dreams and visions, of which he speaks; it js 
enough to answer him with the intuitive demonstration, 
Ijiat such sort of evidence for Christianity, might be as 
easily pretended for one religion as another; it is such 
as none but a desperate cause would appeal to, such 
as no rational man would respect, and no honest man 
maintain; not on.y of no nature to afford proof to the 
claims of a divine revelation, but itself unproved; and 
not alone unproved; but of its own nature, both morally 
and physically, incapable of receiving any sort of proof. 
The heart smarts for the degradation of outraged reason, 
for the humiliation of torn and lacerated humanity; that 
a Mosheim should talk of dreams and visions—tlmt b 
should come to this! 0 Christianity, how great are thy 
triumphs ! 

* Vol. I, p. 247 


56 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS. 


Of the healing of diseases, by the invoking of a 
name. It is impossible not to see, that this author did 
not believe his own argument : because it is impossible 
not to know that no man in his senses could believe it, 
and impossible not to suspect, that so weak and foolish 
an argument, was by this author, purposely exhibited ai 
one of the main pillars of the Christian evidence, in ordei 
to betray to future times, how weak that evidence was, 
and to encourage those who should come to live in some 
happier day when the choused world might better endure 
the being undeceived ;—to blow it down with their breath. 
Beausobre, Tillotson, South, Watson, Paley, and some 
high in the church, yet living, have given more than preg¬ 
nant inuendoes of their acting on this policy. 

Nothing is more obvious, than that persons diseased in 
body, must labour under a corresponding weakness of 
mind. There is no delusion of such obvious practi¬ 
cability on a weak mind in a diseased body ; as that 
which should hold out hopes of cure, beyond the promise 
of nature. A miracle of healing, is therefore of all miracles, 
in its own nature most suspicious, and least capable of 
evidence. 

It was the pretence to these gifts of healing , that gave 
name to the Therapeutaz , or Healers ; and consequently sup¬ 
plies us with an infallible clue to lead to the birth-place and 
cradle of Christianity. The cure being performed by 
invocation of a name , still lights us on to the germ and 
nucleus of the whole system. Neither slight nor few are 
the indications of this magical or supposed charming 
operation of the Brutum fulmen; the mere name only of the 
words, Jesus Christ , in the New Testament itself; and con¬ 
sequently neither weak nor inconsecutive are our reasons^ 
for maintaining that it was in the name, and the name only , 
that the first preachers of Christianity believed ; that it 
was not supposed by them to be the designation of any 
person who had really existed, but was a vox et prceterea 
nihil ,—a charm more powerful than the Abraxas , more 
sacred than Abracadabra; in short, those were but the 
spells that- bound the services of inferior demons— this , 
conjured the assistance of omnipotence, and was indeed, 
the God’s spell. u There is none other name under heaven , 
(says the Peter of the Acts of the Apostles) given among 
men , whereby we must be saved.” —Chap. iv. 12. 

61. Origen, ever the main strength and sheet-anchor 
of the advocates of Christianity, expressly maintains, that 


ADMISSIONS OF CHRISTIAN WRITERS 57 

u the miraculous powers which the Christians possessed, 
were not in the least owing to enchantments, (which he 
makes Celsus seem to have objected,) but to their pro¬ 
nouncing the name I. E. S. U. S,* and making mention 
of some remarkable occurrences of his life. Nay, the name 
of I. E. S. U. S, has had such power over demons, that 
it has sometimes proved effectual, though pronounced by 
very wicked persons.”— Answer to Celsus , chap. 6. 

62. u And the name of I. E. S. U. S, at this very day, 
composes the ruffled minds of men, dispossesses demons, 
cures diseases ; and works a meek, gentle, and amiable 
temper in all those persons, who make profession of 
Christianity, from a higher end than their worldly inte¬ 
rests.”— Ibid. 57. So says Origen. No Christian will for 
a moment think that there is any salving of the matter in 
such a statement. Friar’s balsam was found in every case 
without fail ; to heal the wound, even after a man’s head 
was clean cut off, provided his head were set on again the 
right way. 

63. “ When men pretend to work miracles, and talk of 
immediate revelations, of knowing the truth by revelation, 
and of more than ordinary illumination ; we ought not to 
be frightened by those big words, from looking what is 
under them ; nor to be afraid of calling those things into 
question, which we see set off with such high-flown pre¬ 
tences. It is somewhat strange that we should believe 
men the more, for that very reason, upon which we should 
believe them the less.— Clagifs Persuasive to an Ingenuous 
Trial of Opinions , p. 19, as quoted by Tindal , p. 217. 

64. St. Chrysostom declares, “ that miracles are only 
proper to excite sluggish and vulgar minds, that men of 
sense have no occasion for them, and that they frequently 
carry some untoward suspicion along with them.”— Quoted 
in Middleton's Prefatory Discourse to his Letter from Rome , 
p. 104. 

In this sentiment it must be owned, that the Christian 
saint strikingly coincides with the Pagan philosopher 
Polybius, who considered all miracles as fables, invented 
to preserve in the vulgar a due sense of respect for the 
deitv.”— Reimmann , Hist. Ath. p. 233. 

65. The great theologian, Beausobre, in his immense 
Histoire de Manichee, tom. 2, p. 568, says,f u We see in 

* See similar mystical senses of the epithets, Christ and Chrcst, under the arti¬ 
cles Serapis, and Adrian’s Letter. . . . , 

t “ On voit dans l histoire que j’ai rapportee, une sorte d hypocrisie, qui n a 


58 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 


the history which I have related, a sort of hypocrisy, that 
has been perhaps, but too common at all times : that 
churchmen not only do not say what they think, but they 
do say, the direct contrary of what they think. Philo¬ 
sophers in their cabinets ; out of them, they are content 
with fables, though they well know that they are fables. 
Nay more : they deliver honest men to the executioner, 
for having uttered what they themselves know to be true. 
How many Atheists and Pagans have burned holy men 
under the pretext of heresy ? Every day do hypocrites con¬ 
secrate, and make people adore the host, though as well 
convinced as I am, that it is nothing but a bit of bread. 

66. The learned Grotius has a similar avowal: u He 
that reads ecclesiastical history, reads nothing but the 
roguery and folly of bishops and churchmen .”—Grotii 
Epist. 22. 

No man could quote higher authorities. 


CHAPTER VII. 

OF THE ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 

A knowledge of the character and tenets of that most 
remarkable set of men that ever existed, who were known 
by the name of Essenes or Therapeuts, is absolutely 
necessary to a fair investigation of the claims of the New 
Testament, in the origination and references of which, 
they bear so prominent a part. 

The celebrated German critic, Michaelis, whose great 
work, the Introduction to the New Testament , has been trans¬ 
lated by Dr. Herbert Marsh, the present Lord Bishop of 
Peterborough, defines them as “a Jewish sect, which 
began to spread itself at Ephesus, and to threaten great 
mischief to Christianity, in the time (or, indeed, previous 
to the time) of St. Paul ; on which account, in his epistles 
to the Ephesians, to the Colossians, and to Timothy ; he 
declares himself openly against them.”f 

peut-etre ete que trop commune dans tous les terns. C’est que des ecclesiastiques, 
non seulement ne disent pas ce qu’ils pensent, mais disent tout le contraire de ce 
qu’ils pensent. Philosophes dans leur cabinet, hors dela, ils content des fables, 
quoiqu’ils sachent bien que ce sont des fables. Ils font plus ; ils livrent au bour- 
reau des gens de biens pour l’avoir dit. Combiens d’athees et de prophanes ont 
fait bruler de saints personnages, sous pretexte d’heresie ! Tous les jours dea 
hypocrites, consacrent etfont adorer l’hostie, bien qu’ils soient aussi convaincus que 
rnoi, que ce n’est qu’un morceau de pain .”—Ibid 
t Michaelis, vol. 4, p. 79. 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 


59 


But surely this admission of the sect’s beginning to 
spread itself at Ephesus, and its existence at Colosse, and 
in the diocese of Timothy, to a sufficient extent to call for 
the serious opposition of one who, in any calculations of 
chronology, must have been the contemporary of Jesus 
Christ; is no disparagement of the fact of its previous 
establishment in Egypt ; while the admitted fact,* that 
these three Epistles of St. Paul, in which he so earnestly 
opposes himself to this sect, were written before any one 
of our four Gospels, involves the a fortiori demonstration ; 
that their tenets and discipline, whatever they were, were 
not corruptions or perversions of those gospels, however 
those gospels may turn out to be improvements or plagia¬ 
risms upon the previously established tenets and discipline 
of that sect. 

The ancient writers who have given any account of this 
sect, are Philo, Josephus, Pliny, and Solinus. Infinite 
perplexity, however, is occasioned by modern historians 
attempting to describe differences and distinctions where 
there are really none. The Therapeutae and the Essenes are 
one and the same sect : the Thercipeutce , which is Greek , being 
nothing more than Essenes , which is of the same sense in 
Egyptian, and is in fact a translation of it :—as, perhaps, 
Surgeons , Healers , Curates , or the most vulgar sense of 
Doctors, is the nearest possible plain English of Thera- 
peutje. The similarity of the sentiments of the Essenes, 
or Therapeutae, to those of the church of Rome, induced 
the learned Jesuit, Nicolaus Serarius, to seek for them 
an honourable origin. He contended, therefore, that they 
were Asideans, and derived them from the Rechabites, 
described so circumstantially in the 35th chapter of Jere¬ 
miah ; at the same time, he asserted that the first Chris¬ 
tian monks were Essenes. 

Both of these positions were denied by his opponents, 
Drusius and Scaliger ; but in respect to the latter, says 
Michaelis, certainly Serarius was in the right. 

“ The Essenes,” he adds, “ were indeed a Jewish, and 
n.t a Christian sect.” Why, to be sure, it would be awk¬ 
ward enough for a Christian divine to admit them to the 
honours of that name before “that religion which St. Au¬ 
gustine tells us 4 was before in the world,’ began to be 
called Christian.” (See Admission 12.) The disciples were 
called Christians first at Antioch (Acts). But sure, it was 
something more than the name that made them such ; they 

* It is admitted by Dr. Lardner 


60 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 


were none the less what the name signified, ere yet it was 
conferred on them : and the Essenes had every thing but 
the name.” 

“ It is evident,” continues Michaelis, u from the above- 
mentioned epistles of St. Paul, that to the great morti¬ 
fication of the apostle, they insinuated themselves very 
early into the Christian church.” 

But is it not, in reason, as likely that the Christians, 
who were certainly the last comers , should have insinuated 
themselves into the Therapeutan community ? 

Eusebius has fully shown that the monastic life was 
derived from the Essenes ; and, because many Christians 
adopted the manners of the Essenes, Epiphanius took the 
Essenes in general for Christians, and confounded them 
with the Nazarenes :—a confusion to which the similarity 
of this name, to that of the Nazarites of the Old Testa¬ 
ment, might in some measure contribute. But we find 
this confusion still worse confounded, in the remarkable 
oversight of the passage, Matthew ii. 23, which betrays 
that Jesus himself was believed to be one of this fraternity 
of monks.* 

JMontfaucon and Helyot have attempted to prove them 
Christians, but have been confuted by Bouhier. Lange 
has contended that they were nothing more than circum¬ 
cised Egyptians , but has been confuted by Henmann.— 
Marsh's Michaelis , vol. 4, p. 79, 80, 81. 

“ It was in Egypt,” says the great ecclesiastical historian, 
Mosheim, u that the morose discipline of Asceticism f 
(i. e. the Essenian or Therapeutan discipline) took its rise; 
and it is observable, that that country has in all times, as 
it were by an immutable law or disposition of nature, 
abounded with persons of a melancholy complexion, and 
produced, in proportion to its extent, more gloomy spirits 
than any other parts of the world. It was here that the 
Essenes dwelt principally, long before the coming of Christ. 
—Mosheim , vol. 1, p. 196. 

* Matthew ii. 23. “ That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by tho 

prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene that is (as we see from 1 piphanius), a 
Therapeut. It is certain that none of the Jewish prophets had so said. Some 
other equally sacred writings are referred to. Though their accomplishment by 
the mere resemblance of the name of the city in which Jesus is said to have resi¬ 
ded, to that of the order of monks to which he was believed to have belonged, is a 
most miserable pun. The Jews, however, who think it reasonable to admit that 
such a person as Jesus really existed, place his birth near a century sooner than the 
generally assumed epocha.— Basnage Histuire des Juifs , 1. 5, c. 14, 15. 

t From the Greek aaxrjOig, exercise, discipline, study, meditation, signify- 
Jig also self-mortification 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 


G1 


It is not the first glance, nor a cursory observance, that 
will sufficiently admonish the reader of the immense his¬ 
torical wealth put into his hand, by this stupendous admis¬ 
sion, this surrender of the key-stone of the mighty arch,— 
this giving-up of every thing that can be pretended for the 
evidences of the Christian religion. 

This admission of the great ecclesiastical historian (than 
whom there is no greater), will serve us as the Pythagorean 
theorem—the great geometrical element of all subsequent 
science, of continual recurrence, of infinite application— 
ever to be borne in mind, always to be brought in proof— 
presenting the means of solving every difficulty, and the 
clue for guiding us to every truth. u Bind it about thy 
neck, write it upon the tablet of thy heart ”— Every 
thing of Christianity is of Egyptian origin. 

The first and greatest library that ever was in the world, 
was at Alexandria in Egypt. The first of that most 
mischievous of all institutions—universities, was the 
University of Alexandria in Egypt; where lazy monks and 
wily fanatics first found the benefit of clubbing together, 
to keep the privileges and advantages of learning to them¬ 
selves, and concocting holy mysteries and inspired legends, 
to be dealt out as the craft should need, for the perpetu¬ 
ation of ignorance and superstition, and consequently of 
the ascendency of jugglers and jesuits, holy hypocrites, 
and reverend rogues, among men. 

All the most valued manuscripts of the Christian scrip¬ 
tures are Codices Alexandrini. The very first bishops of 
whom we have any account, were bishops of Alexandria . 
Scarcely one of the more eminent fathers of the Christian 
church is there, who had not been educated and trained in 
the arts of priestly fraud, in the University of Alexandria ,— 
that great sewer of the congregated feeulencies of fana¬ 
ticism. 

In those early times, the professions of Medicine and 
Divinity were inseparable. We read of the divinity stu¬ 
dents studying medicine in the School, or University of 
Alexandria, to which all persons resorted, who were after¬ 
wards to practice ip either way, on the weak in body or 
the weak in mind, among their fellow creatures. The 
Therapeuts , or Essenes, as their name signifies, were 
expressly professors of the art of healing —an art in those 
days necessarily conferring the most mystical sanctity of 
character on all who were endued with it, and the most 
copveiiiept of all others for the purposes of imposture and 
7 


62 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS 


wonderment. It was invariably considered to be attainable 
only bv tne especial gift of heaven,* * * § and no cure of any 
sort, or in any way effected, was ever ascribed to natural 
causes merely. Those who, after due training in the 
ascetic discipline, were sent out from the university of 
Alexandria to practice their divinely acquired art in the 
towns and villages, were recognized as regular or canonical 
apostles : while those who had not obtained their credentials 
from the college, who set up for themselves, or who, after 
having left the college, ceased to recognise its appoint¬ 
ment, were called false apostles , quacks, heretics, and em¬ 
pirics. And in several of the early apocryphal scrip¬ 
tures, we find the titles Jipostolici and Jlpotactici (aposto¬ 
lical, and apotactical, i. e. of the monkish order of Apo- 
tactites, or Solitaires,) perfectly synonimous. Eusebius 
emphatically calls the apotactical Therapeuts apostolical. 
“ Philo (he says) wrote also a treatise on the contemplative 
life , or the Worshippers ; from whence, we have borrowed 
those things, which we allege concerning the manner of 
life of those apostolical men.”f Indeed, Christ himself, is 
represented as describing his apostles as members of this 
solitary order of monks, and being one himself :—“ They 
are not of the world , even as I am not of the world.” —John 
xvii. 16. What then but monks ? The seceders or dis¬ 
senters (and of this class was St. Paul) 4 upon finding the 
advantage of setting up in the trade upon their own inde¬ 
pendent foundation, pleaded their success in miracles of 
healing, as evidence of their divine commission ; and abun¬ 
dantly returned the revilings of the Therapeutan college. 

Unaided by the lights of anatomy, and unfounded on 
any principles of rational science ; recovery from disease 
could only be ascribed to supernatural powers. A fever 
was supposed to be a dtemon that had taken up his abode 
in the body of the unfortunate patient, and was to be 
expelled, not by any virtue of material causes ; but by 
incantations, spells, and leucomancy , or white magic ; as 
opposed to necromancy , or black magic, by which diseases 
and evils of all sorts were believed to be incurred. The 
tchite magic consisted of prayers, fastings,§ baptisms, 

* “To another the gifts of healing, by the same Spirit. Have all the gifts of 
healing ?” 1 Cor. xii.—Q,uery. How did he spend three years in Arabia, but in 

a course of study for the ministry ? 

t O (Zoyoc) TTSQl pin fltO'QtjTlXH, 7] IXtTOIV, S; 8, TCI 7TS()l T8 |Sl8 TOM' aTTOOToXlXU» 

uvSqwv SttXtjXv-Oautp. — Eccl. Hist. lib. 2, c. 17, A. X Ga.Iat. i. 17. 

§ “ Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.” Matt 
ftvui. 21. 


ESSENES OR TIIERAPEUTS. 


63 


sacraments, &c. which were believed to nave the same 
power over good daemons, and even over God himself, as 
the black magic had over evil daemons and their supreme 
head, the Devil. The trembling patient was only entitled 
to expect his cure in proportion to his faith, to believe 
without understanding, and to surrender his fortune and 
life itself to the purposes of his physician, and to the 
business of imposing upon others, the deceits that had 
been practised upon himself. 

Even to this day, the name retained by our sacred 
writings, is derived from the belief of their magical influ¬ 
ence, as a spell or charm of God, to drive away diseases. 
The Irish peasantry still continue to tie passages of 
St. John’s Spell, or St. John’s God’s-spell, to the horns 
of cows to make them give more milk ; nor would any 
powers of rational argument shake their conviction of the 
efficacy of a bit of the word , tied round a colt’s heels, to pre¬ 
vent them from swelling 

It will become physicians of higher claims to science 
and rationality, to triumph over the veterinary piety of the 
Bog of Allen, when their own forms of prescription shall 
no longer betray the wish to conceal from the patient 
the nature of the ingredients to which he is to trust his 
life, nor bear, as the first mark of the pen upon the paper, 
the mystical hieroglyphic of Jupiter , the talismanic R, 
under whose influence the prescribed herbs were to be 
gathered, and from whose miraculous agency their opera- 
tiun was to be expected. 

The Therapeutte of Egypt, from whom are descended 
the vagrant hordes of Jews and Gypsies, had well found 
by what arts mankind were to be cajoled ; and as they 
boasted their acquaintance with the sanative qualities of 
herbs of all countries ; so in their extensive peregrinations 
through all the then known regions of the earth, they had 
not failed to bring home, and remodel to their own pur¬ 
poses, those sacred spells or religious romances, which 
they found had been successfully palmed on the credulity 
of remote nations. Hence the Indian Chnshna might have 
become the Therapeutan head of the order of spiritual 
physicians. 

No principle was held more sacred than that of the 
necessity of keeping the sacred writings from the know¬ 
ledge of the people. Nothing could be safer irom the 
danger of discovery than the substitution, with scarce a 
change of names, u of the incarnate Deity of the Sanscrit 


64 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 


Romance” for the imaginary founder of the Therapeutan 
college. What had been said to have been done in India, 
could be as well said to have been done in Palestine 
The change of names and places, and the mixing up of 
various sketches of the Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, and 
Roman mythology, would constitute a sufficient disguise 
to evade the languid curiosity of infant scepticism. A 
knowledge within the acquisition only of a few, and which 
the strongest possible interest bound that few to hold 
inviolate, would soon pass entirely from the records of 
human memory. A long continued habit of imposing upon 
others would in time subdue the minds of the impostors 
themselves, and cause them to become at length the dupes 
of their own deception, to forget the temerity in which 
their first assertions had originated, to catch the infection 
of the prevailing credulity, and to believe their own lie. 

In such, the known and never-changing laws of nature, 
and the invariable operation of natural causes, we find 
the solution of every difficulty and perplexity that remote¬ 
ness of time might throw in the way of our judgment of 
past events. 

But when, to such an apparatus of rational probability, 
we are enabled to bring in the absolute ratification of 
unquestionable testimony,—to show that what was in 
supposition more probable than any thing else that could 
be supposed, was in fact that which absolutely took 
place,—we have the highest degree of evidence of which 
history is capable ; we can give no other definition of 
historical truth itself. 

The probability , then, that that sect of vagrant quack- 
doctors, the Therapeutic, who were established in Egypt, 
and its neighbourhood many ages before the period assigned 
by later theologians as that of the birth of Christ, were the 
original fabricators of the writings contained in the New 
Testament; becomes certainty on the basis of evidence, than 
which history hath nothing more certain—by the unguard¬ 
ed, but explicit—unwary, but most unqualified and positive, 
statement of the historian Eusebius, that “ those ancient 
Therapeutoe. were Christians , and that meir ancient writings 
were our Gospels and Epistles .” * The wonder with which 
Lardner quotes this astonishing confession of the great 

* The above most important passage of all ecclesiastical records, is in the 
2d book, the 17th chapter, and 53d and following pages of his History. The 
title of a whole chapter (the fourth of the first book) of this work is, that 

THE RELIGION PUBLISHED BY JeSUS CHRIST TO ALL NATIONS IS NK 
THER NEW NOR STRANGE. 


ESSENES OR THERAPEUTS. 


65 


pillar of the pretended evidences of the Christian religion,* 
only shows how aware he was of the fatal inferences with 
which it teems. 

It is most essentially observable, that the Essenes or 
Therapeuts, in addition to their monopoly of the art of 
healing, professed themselves to be Eclectics; they held 
Plato in the highest esteem, though they made no scruple 
to join with his doctrines, whatever they thought con¬ 
formable to reason in the tenets and opinions of the other 
nhilosophers. 

u These sages were of opinion that true philosophy, f the 
greatest and most salutary gift of God to mortals, was 
scattered, in various portions, through all the different 
sects ; and that it was, consequently, the duty of every 
wise man to gather it from the several corners where it lay- 
dispersed, and to employ it, thus re-united, in destroying 
the dominion of impiety and vice.”| The principal seat 
of this philosophy was at Alexandria; and “it manifestly 
appears,” says Mosheim,§ “ from the testimony of Philo 
the Jew, who was himself one of this sect, that this 
(Eclectic) philosophy (of this Essenian or Therapeutan' 
sect) was in a flourishing state at Alexandria when our 
Saviour was upon earth.”— Eccl. Hist. Cent. 1, p. 1. 

1. We have only to collate the admission of the ortho¬ 
dox Lactantius, that Christianity itself was the Eclectic 
Philosophy , inasmuch as that “if there had been any one 
to have collected the truth that was scattered and diffused 
among the various sects of philosophers and divines into 
one, and to have reduced it into a system, there would 
indeed be no difference between him and a Christian :”|| 
2. To compare the various tenets and speculations of the 
different philosophers and religionists of antiquity with 
the strong and particular smatch of the Platonic philo¬ 
sophy, which we actually see pervading the New Testa¬ 
ment : and to add the weight in all reason and fairness 
due to the positive testimony of that unquestionably 
learned and intelligent Manichaean Christian and bishop, 
Faustus,—that “it is an undoubted fact, that the New 
Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor by his 

* Credibility, vol. 2, 4to. p. 361 

t Observe well, the phrases,—“ the philosophy—our philosophy ,” and the 

true philosophy ,” occur throughout the Fathers, in a hundred passages for one, 
where “ Christianity ” should have been the word. 

t Mosheim, vol. i. p. 169. 

§ Ibid. p. 37. 

II Admission No. 10 in the chapter of Admissions. 

7* 


66 CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 

apostles, but a long while after their time, by some 
unknown persons, who, lest they should not be credited 
wnen they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted 
with, affixed to their works the names of apostles, or ol 
such as were supposed to have been their companions, 
and then said that they were written according to them.”— 
Faust lib. 2. 

To this important passage, of which I reserve the 
original text for my next occasion of quoting it,* I here 
subjoin what the same high authority objects, if possibly 
with still increasing emphasis, against the arguments of 
St. Augustine :f—“ For many things have been inserted 
by your ancestors in the speeches of our Lord, which, 
though put forth under his name, agree not with his faith ; 
especially since,—as already it has been often proved 
by us,—that these things were not written by Christ, nor 
his apostles, but a long while after their assumption, by 
I know not what sort of half-jews, not even agreeing 
with themselves, who made up their tale out of reports 
and opinions merely ; and yet, fathering the whole upon 
the names of the apostles of the Lord, or on those who 
were supposed to have followed the apostles ; they men¬ 
daciously pretended that they had written their lies and 
conceits, according to them.” The conclusion is irre¬ 
sistible. 


CHAPTER VIII 

THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES, DOCTRINES, DISCIPLINE, AND 
ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY, LONG ANTERIOR TO THE PERIOD 
ASSIGNED AS THAT OF THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. 

From the more general account of that remarkable sect 
of philosophical religionists, the Egyptian Therapeuts, 
which we have collected from the admissions of the most 

* In chapter 15. 

t “ Multa enim a majoribus vestris, eloquiis Domini nostri inserta verba sunt , 
quae nomine signata ipsius, cum ejus fide non congruant, praesertim, quia, ut jam 
saepe probatum a nobis est, nec ab ipso haec sunt, nec ab ejus apostolis scripta, sed 
multo post eorum assumptionem, a nescio quibus, et ipsis inter se non concordanti- 
bus semi-judjeis, per famas opinionesque comperta sunt ; qui tamen omnia 
eadetn in apostolorum Domini conferentes nomina, vel eorum qui secuti apostoloa 
viderentur, errores ac mendacia sua secundum eos se scripsisse mentiti sunt.”— 
Faust, lib. 33, c. 3. 




CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 67 

strenuous defenders of the evidences of the Christian 
religion; we pass into the more immediate sanctuary of 
the sect itself, to learn from the unquestionable authority 
of one who was a member of their community, all that 
can now be known of what their scriptures, doctrines, 
discipline, and ecclesiastical polity, were. 

On the threshold of this avenue, we only pause to re¬ 
capitulate for the reader’s admonition, the certainties of 
information already established; which, carrying with him 
through the important discoveries to which we now ap¬ 
proach, he shall with the quicker apprehension discern, 
and with the easier method weigh and appreciate the 
value of the further information to which now we tend. 

1. The Esseries, the Therapeuts, the Ascetics, the 
Monks, the Ecclesiastics, and the Eclectics, are but differ¬ 
ent names for one and the self-same sect. 

2. The word Essene is nothing more than the Egyptian 
word for that of which Therapeut is the Greek , each of 
them signifying healer or doctor , and designating the char¬ 
acter of the sect as professing to be endued with the 
miraculous gift of healing; and more especially so with 
respect to the diseases of the mind. 

3. Their name of Ascetics indicated the severe discipline 
and exercise of self-mortilication, long fastings, prayers, 
contemplation, and even makiiig of themselves eunuchs for 
the kingdom of heaven’s sake* as did Origen, Melito, and 
others, who derived their Christianity from the same 
school ; and as Christ himself is represented to have re¬ 
cognised and approved their practice. 

4. Their name of Monks indicated their delight in soli¬ 
tude, their contemplative life, and their entire segregation 
and abstraction from the world : which Christ, in the 
Gospel, is in like manner represented, as describing as 
characteristic of the community of which he himself was 
a member.f 

5. Their name of Ecclesiastics was of the same sense, 
and indicated their being called out , elected, separated 
from the general fraternity of mankind, and set apart to 
the more immediate service and honour of God. 

6. Their name of Eclectics indicated that their divine 

* “ And there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the king¬ 
dom of heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.” Matt, 
xix. 12. 

f “ They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” John xvii. 16. 
“ T pray for them, I pray not for the world.” Ibid. 9. Surely, the vyorld ought 
to be much obliged to him ! 


68 CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST 

philosophy was a collection of all the diverging rays of 
truth which were scattered through the various systems 
of Pagan and Jewish piety, into one bright focus—that 
their religion was made up of u whatsoever things are true , 
whatsoever things are honest , whatsoever things are just , what - 
soever things are pure , whatsoever things are lovely , whatsoever 
things are of good report — if there were any virtue , and if there 
were any praise ” (Phil. iv. 8,) wherever found ; alike indif¬ 
ferent, whether it were derived from u saint, from savage 
or from sage—Jehovah, Jove, or Lord.” 

7. They had a flourishing university, or corporate body, 
established upon these principles at Alexandria in Egypt, 
long before tne period assigned to the birth of Christ. 

8. From this body they sent out missionaries, and had 
established colonies, auxiliary branches, and affiliated 
communities, in various cities of Asia Minor ; which colo¬ 
nies were in a flourishing condition, before the preaching 
of St. Paul. 

9. Eusebius, from whom all our knowledge of eccle¬ 
siastical antiquity is derived, declares his opinion, that 
u the sacred writings used by this sect, were none other 
than our Gospels, and the writings of the apostles; and 
that certain Diegeses, after the manner of allegorical 
interpretations of the ancient prophets ; these were their 
epistles.”* 

10. It is certain, that the Epistles and Gospels, and the 
whole system of Christianity, as conveyed to us upon the 
credit of the fathers ; do at this day bear the character of 
being such an Eclectic epitome or selection from all the 
forms of religion and philosophy then known in the world, 
as these Eclectic philosophers professed to have formed. 

11. It is certain that our three first Gospels were not 
written by the persons whose names they bear, but are 
derived from an earlier draft of the evangelical story, 
which was entitled the Diegesis. 

With these lights in thy hand, enter reader, on the stu¬ 
pendous vista that I unlock for thee, by the best transla¬ 
tion I could make, and better than any that I could find 
ready-made, of the most important historical document in 
the whole world: whichever be the second in importance. 

* Ta/a d’stxog a (fijdiv ccQ/aitov naQ avToig sivai avyy^a^^iara, tvay ythu, xat 
rag tu)v anoaxolwv yQoccpag, AIHFH2EIS rs nrac xara to sixog twv nalat 
nQQyyiTwv (Q^npsvrixag — tniOToXai , ravTa uvai. — Euseb. Ec. His. lib. 2, c. 16. 
fol ed. Colonics Allobrogum, 1612, p. 60, ad literam D, liy\ta 6. 


# 


CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 60 

7 he Sixteenth Chapter of the Second Book of the Ecclesiastical 
History , of Eusebius Pamphilus. 

“St. Mark, the Evangelist, is said first to have been 
sent into Egypt, and to have preached there the same 
gospel which he afterwards committed to writing. There 
he established the churches of Alexandria; and so great was 
t he number of both men and women that became believers 
upon his first address, on account of the more philosophi¬ 
cal and intense Asceticism, (which he both taught and 
practised,) that Philo has seen fit to write a history of 
their manner of living, their assemblies, their sacred 
feasts, and their whole course of life. 

1. He so accurately details the manner of living of those 
who with us have been called Ascetics , as to seem not 
merely the historian of their most remarkable tenets, nor 
as being acquainted with them merely ; but as having em¬ 
braced them ; and both joining their religious rites, and 
extolling those apostolical men, who, as it is likely, were 
descended from Hebrews, and who therefore were wont 
to observe very many of the customs of the ancients, after 
a more Jewish fashion. 

2. In the first place, then, in the discourse which he has 
written concerning the contemplative life , or of men of prayer; 
having pledged himself to add nothing to his history of a 
foreign nature, of his own invention, or beyond truth ; he 
mentions that they were called healers , or curates, and the 
women who were among them doctresses, or Therapeu- 
tesses ; adding the reasons of such a designation, that as 
a sort of physicians, delivering the souls of those who ap¬ 
plied to them from evil passions, they healed and restored 
them to virtue; or on account of their pure and sincere 
ministry and religion with respect to the Deity. 

3. Whether, therefore, of himself, as writing suitably to 
their manners, Philo gave them this designation : or 
whether, indeed, the first of that sect took the name 
when the appellation of Christians had as yet been no 
where announced, it is by no means necessary to discuss ; 

4. So at the same time, in his narration, he bears wit¬ 
ness to their renunciation of property, in the first instance : 

5. And that, as soon as they begin to philosophise, they 
divest themselves of all revenues of their estates ; 

6. And then, having laid aside all the anxieties of life ; 
and leaving society, they make their residence in solitary 
wilds and gardens ; 


70 CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 

7. u For from the time that they resolved from enthu 
siasm and the most ardent faith (which indeed was need 
fill), to practice themselves in the emulation of the pro¬ 
phetic life, they were well aware that converse with 
persons of dissimilar sentiments, would be unprofitable 
and hurtful : 

8. Even as it is related in the accredited Acts of the 
Apostles,* that all who were known of the apostles (had 
imbibed their doctrine) were wont to sell their possessions 
and substance, and divided them among’ all, according as 
any one had need, so that there was not one among them 
in want; 

9. For, whoever were owners of estates or houses, as 
the wordf says, sold them, and brought the prices of the 
things sold, and laid them at the apostles’ feet, that it 
might be divided to each as every one had need. 

10. Philo relates things exactly similar to these which 
we have referred to ; bearing witness to their resemblance, 
even to the letter, saying, 

11. For though this race of men are to be found in all 
parts of the world : nor would it be fitting that either 
Greece or Barbary should not participate in so perfect a 
good ; yet they abound in Egypt, in each of the provinces 
called the Pasturages, and more especially in the neigh¬ 
bourhood of Alexandria ; 

12. And the best of men, from all parts of the world, 
betake themselves to the country of the Therapeutae, as 
to a colony, in some most convenient place ; such as is 
situate near the Lake of Maria,:£ on a small eminence, very 
opportune both on account of its safety, and the agreeable 
temperature of the climate. 

13. And so, after having described what sort of habita¬ 
tions they occupied, he speaks of the churches § established 
throughout the country, as follows : 

14. In each parish there is a sacred edifice which is 
called the temple, and a monastery,\\ in which the monks 
perform the mysteries of the sublime life, taking nothing 
with them, neither meat nor drink, nor any thing neces¬ 
sary for the wants of the body ; but the laws, the divinely 
inspired oracles of the prophets, and hymns, and such 
other things as in which is understanding, and Dy which 
true piety is increased and perfected ; 

15. And among other things, he says, that their religious 
exercise occupies the whole time from morn till evening; 

* Acts iv. t Nota bene. % Nota bene 

§ Nota bene. || Nota bene 


CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 


71 


16. “For those who preside over the holy scriptures, 
philosophise upon them, expounding their literal sense by 
allegory ; 

17. Since they hold that the sense of the spoken mean¬ 
ing is of a hidden nature, indicated in a double sense.* 

18. They have also the writings of the ancients : and 
those who were the first, leaders of their sect, have left 
them many records of the sense conveyed in those alle¬ 
gories : using which as a sort of examples, they imitate 
the manner of the original doctrine :f 

19. And these things, it seems, are reported by a man 
who listened to the holy scriptures, as they expounded them ; 

20. And, in short, it is very likely that those scriptures 
of the ancients, of which he speaks, were the Gospels, and 
the writings of the Apostles ; 

21. And that certain Diegeses,! as it seems, of the 
ancient prophets, interpreted ; such as the Epistle of Paul 
to the Hebrews contains, and many others—these were 
the Epistles. 

22. So, again, he proceeds to write concerning the new 
Psalms which they make : 

23. For they do not confine themselves to contempla¬ 
tion, but they compose canticles and hymns to God, ar¬ 
ranged conveniently in every measure, and in the most 
sublime sorts of metre. 

24. And many other things he relates in the discourse 
of which we treat ; 

25. But these it seemed necessary to recount, in which 
the characteristics of the ecclesiastical institution § are laid 
down. 

26. But if it seem to any one that what has been said is 
not strictly and essentially meant of the gospel polity, but 
may be thought to harmonise with other things than those 
referred to, he may be convinced by the very words of 
Philo, in order following (so he be but an impartial judge), 
in which he will receive an unanswerable testimony on 
this matter ; for thus he writes : 

27. And laying down temperance || as a sort of foundation 
to the soul, they build the other virtues upon it; 

28. 1 Neither meat nor drink do any of them take before 
sun-set,’ as considering the business of philosophy worthy 
of the light, but the necessities of the body only apt for 
darkness; 

* Nota bene. T nota bene. t Nota bene. § Nota bene. 

|| Eyxoarsiav , continence, temperance, abstinence, from whence their name 
£ncratites, or Abstainers. 


72 CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 

29. Whence to this they assigned the day, but only a 
small part of the night to that; 

30. And some of them think not of nourishment for 
three days, so much greater is their desire of under¬ 
standing ; 

31. And some so delight themselves and triumph, as 
banquetted on wisdom, so richly and satisfactorily minis¬ 
tering her doctrine ; as to abstain for a double length of 
time, and scarce after six days to taste of necessary food 
in the way of eating ! 

32. These clear and indisputable remarks of Philo, we 
consider to be spoken of men of our religion only.* 

33. But if any one should yet be so hardened as to con¬ 
tradict these things, yet may he be moved from his incre¬ 
dulity, yielding to such cogent evidences as can be found 
with none, but only in the religion of Christians according to 
the Gospel ;f 

34. For he mentions, that even women are found among 
the men of whom we speak, and that many of them are 
virgins, at an extreme age ; preserving their chastity, not 
from necessity, like the sacred virgins among the Greeks, 
but from a voluntary law, from their zeal and desire of 
wisdom ; 

35. With whom studying to live, they have abjured the 
pleasures.of the body, no longer desiring a mortal offspring, 
but that which is immortal, and which ’tis certain that the 
soul which loves God can alone beget upon itself. 

36. From whence proceeding, he delivers these things 
still more emphatically : 

37. That their expositions of the holy scriptures are, 
by an under-sense, delivered in allegories 

38. For the whole divine revelation, to these men seems 
to resemble an animal, and that the words spoken are the 
body, but the soul is the invisible sense involved in the 
words : which it is their religion itself which first began 
to exhibit distinctively, as in a glass, putting the beautiful 
results of the things understood under the indecencies of 
the names. 

39. What need is there to add to these things, theii 
meetings together, and their residences,—the men in one 
place, and the women in another ? 

40. And the exercises according to the custom this day 
continued among us, and which, especially upon the 
festival of our Saviour’s passion, we have been accus- 

* Nota bene. t Nota bene, 

t “ Which things are an allegory.”—Gal. iv. 24. 


CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES ANTERIOR TO CHRIST. 73 

tomed to observe, in fastings, in watchings, and in study¬ 
ing the divine discourses ? 

41. And which are kept to this day in the same manner 
only among us : as the same author hath shown most mani¬ 
festly, and delivered in his own writing ; 

42. And especially relating the vigils of the great fes¬ 
tival, and the exercises in them, and their hymns, which 
are the very same as those used to be said among us ; 

43. And how, as one of them sang the psalm in a pleas¬ 
ing voice ; the others leisurely listening, took up the last 
stanza of the hymns ; and how, on the afore-named days, 
lying on beds of straw upon the ground, they would taste 
no wine at all ? 

44. As he has in so many words written. Nor would 
they eat any thing that had blood in it that water only 
is their drink ; and hyssop, bread, and salt, their food. 

45. In addition to these circumstances, he describes the 
orders of preferment among those of them who aspire to 
ecclesiastical ministrations,—the offices of the deacons, the 
humbler rank, and the supreme authority of their bishops.f 

46. Whoever wishes a clear understanding of these mat¬ 
ters, may acquire it from the afore-mentioned work of this 
author. “ But that Philo wrote these things with refer¬ 
ence to those who were the first preachers of the discipline 
which is according to the Gospel, and to the manners first 
handed down from the Apostles, must be manifest to every 
man.”| 

This conclusion on the whole matter is so strong, that 
though I am confident a more faithful translation of the 
whole cannot be made by any man, I recommend a refer¬ 
ence to the original, that the scholar may see at once that 
I have taken no liberty with my author ; and have no 
occasion to conciliate his favour, or to deprecate his criti¬ 
cism. I offer him my own translation, not on the score of 
its being mine, but on the score of its being as good as the 
best that could possibly be made, and better than any that 
is not the best. 

* For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no 
greater burthen than these necessary things : that ye abstain from meats offered to 

idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from.; iiOin 

which if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well.”—Acts xv. 29. 

f “ For they that have used the olfice of a deacon well, purchase to theinselvea 
a good degree.”—1 Tim. iii. 13. 

% On St rug nQwTsg xr t Qvxag rrjc xara ro svayyeXtor SiSaoxaXiag, ra n aQ/rfisy 
7 Tqog t<x)v anoaroXcjv t&vij naoaStSofitvci xuTaXufiiuv o <Ptku)v tuvt’ sy(JU(j*e, Tiavn tin 
St]Xov. — Ibid _ 




74 


PHILO. 


CHAPTER IX. 

OF PHILO AND HIS TESTIMONY. 

Of Philo, or as he is commonly called, Philo-Judaeus - 
Philo the Jew ; whom Eusebius thus largely quotes ; it 
becomes of supreme importance that we should be able to 
ascertain the age in which he wrote, and who and what lie 
was ; since his treatise on “ the Contemplate life” or Monk¬ 
ery, is a demonstration, than which history could not pos¬ 
sibly have a stronger, that the monastic institution was in 
full reign at and before his time. 

Philo-Judaeus was a native of Alexandria, of a priest’s 
family, and brother to the Alabarch, or chief Jewish mag¬ 
istrate in that'city. He was sent at the head of an em¬ 
bassy from the Egyptian Jews, to the Emperor Cains Cal¬ 
igula, a. d. 39, and has left an interesting recital of it, usu¬ 
ally printed in Josephus. He also wrote a defence of the 
Jews against Flaccus, then President of Egypt-; yet ex¬ 
tant. He was eminently versed in the Platonic philoso¬ 
phy, of which both his style and his opinions partake.— 
His works consist chiefly of allegorical expositions of the 
Old Testament. 

Eusebius places his time in the reign of Cais Claudius, 
the immediate successor of the Emperor Tiberius, and 
says of him, that he was a man not only superior to the 
most of our own religion, but by far the most renowned of 
all the followers of profane knowledge :* and that he was 
by lineal descent a Hebrew, and not inferior to any in 
rank at Alexandria ; but by following the platonic and Py¬ 
thagorean philosophy, he surpassed all the learned men of 
his time. 

Eusebius is anxious to have it believed, that Philo was 
in such sense u one of us ,” as to have been to all intents 
and purposes a Christian : and intimates that u it was re¬ 
ported that Philo had met and conversed with St. Peter, 
at Rome, in the reign of Claudius.”! 

But alas, Philo has been insensible, or ungrateful, for 
the honours with which he was so distinguished, and 

* <$iXwv syvwQitsro nXsiaroig avtjg e uororrwv tjiteTtQwt aXXa Ss to rv ano Ttjg 
«|to^ev oQuomsvoJv naidtiag, tnKJtjuoTciTgo .— Ecc. Hist. lib. 2, c. 4. 

f Ov xai Xoyog s/ti xccTa JCXuvtiiov sm Ttjg Polling tig oinhav tX&stv IltiQti 
ro ig txttoe tots xtjqvttovti xai ex antixog av eitj tut oye. — Lib. 15 . 


COROLLARIES. 


75 


though he has so accurately described the discipline of a 
religious community, of which he was himself a member . 
1. Having parishes, 2. Churches, 3. Bishops, priests, 
and deacons ; 4. Observing the grand festivals of Chris¬ 
tianity ; 5. Pretending to have had apostolic founders ; 
6. Practising the very manners that distinguished the 
immediate apostles of Christ ; 7. Using scriptures which 
they believed to be divinely inspired, 8. And which 
Eusebius himself believed to be none other than the sub¬ 
stance of our gospels ; 9. And the selfsame allegorical 
method of interpreting those scriptures, which has since 
obtained among Christians ; 10. And the selfsame manner 
and order of performing public worship ; 11. And having 
missionary stations or colonies—of their community estab¬ 
lished in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, 
Colosse, and Thessalonica ; precisely such, and in such 
circumstances, as those addressed by St. Paul, in his 
respective epistles to the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, 
Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Thessalonians ; 
and 12. Answering to every circumstance described of the 
state and discipline of the first community of Christians, 
to the very letter ; 13. And all this, as nothing new in 
Philo’s time, but of then long-established notoriety and 
venerable antiquity : yet Philo, who wrote before Jose¬ 
phus, and gave this particular description of Egyptian 
monkery, when Jesus Christ, if such a person had ever 
existed, was not above ten years of age, and at least fifty 
years, before the existence of any Christian writing what¬ 
ever, has never once thrown out the remotest hint, that he 
had ever heard of the existence of Christ, of Christianity, 
or of Christians. 


CHAPTER X. 

COROLLARIES. 

1. Should it turn out, that the text of Philo, as it may 
have come down to our times, presents material dis¬ 
crepancies from the report which Eusebius has here made 
of it ; that discovery would bring no relief to the cogency 
of the demonstration resulting from Eusebius’s testimony 
merely ; because it is with Eusebius alone, that we are in 
this investigation concerned ; and, 


76 


COROLLARIES. 


2. Because Christianity would be but little the gainer 
by overthrowing the credebility of Eusebius in this instance, 
at so dear an expence, as the necessary destruction of bis 
credibility in all others. If we are not to give Eusebius 
credit for ability and integrity, to make a fair and accurate 
quotation, upon a matter that could have no room for mis¬ 
take, or excuse for ignorance ; if on such a matte r he 
would knowingly and wilfully deceive us ; and the variations 
of the text of Philo, from the quotations he has given us, 
be held a sufficient demonstration that he has done so : 
there remains no alternative, but that his testimony must 
lose its claim on our confidence, in all other cases what¬ 
ever : with the credit of Eusebius must go, all that 
Eusebius’s authority upheld, and the three first ages of 
Christianity, will remain without an historian, or but as 

“-A tale, 

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing.” 


But the evidences of the Christian religion are not yet in 
this distress. 

The testimony of Eusebius on this subject, is neither 
more nor less valid; for any confirmation or impeachment 
it might receive, from any extant copies of the writings of 
Philo. 

3. Because, nothing is more likely, than that the text of 
Philo, might have been altered purposely to produce such 
an appearance of discrepancy, and so to supply to Chris¬ 
tians, (what ’tis known they would stop at no means to 
come by,) a caveat and evitation of the most unguarded 
and portentous giving-of-tongue, that ever fell from so 
shrewd and able an historian ; and, 

4. Because, nothing is more certain, than that no 
writings have ever been safe from such interpolations ; 
the text of the New Testament itself, at this day, pre¬ 
senting us with innumerable texts, which were not con¬ 
tained in its earlier copies, and being found deficient of 
many texts that were in those copies.* 

5. We have certainly Eusebius’s testimony in this 
chapter, and in such a state as that it may be depended 
on, as being bona fide his testimony, really and fairly 
exhibiting to us, what his view and judgment of Chris¬ 
tianity was, or—(the Christian is welcome to the alter¬ 
native !) 


* See Chapter 16 




COROLLARIES. 


77 


6. And Eusebius’s testimony is valid to the full effect 
for which we claim it, and that is, t6 the proof of what the 
origin of the Christian scriptures was, as it appeared to 
him. 

7. And the validity of his testimony cannot be im¬ 
peached in this particular instance, without overthrowing 
the authority of evidence altogether, opening the door to 
everlasting quibbling, turning history into romance, and 
making* the admission of facts to depend on the caprice or 
prejudice of a party.* 

8. And if what Eusebius has delivered in this chapter, 
cannot be reconciled to what he may seem to have de¬ 
livered in other parts of his writings, it will be for those 
who refuse to receive his testimony, /iere, to show how, or 
where he ever hath, or could have, delivered a contrary 
testimony more explicitly, intelligibly, and positively, than 
he has this. 

9. Nor can they claim from us, that we should respect 
his testimony in any other case, when they themselves 
refuse to respect it, where it stands in conflict with their 
own foregone conclusion. 

10. And if, what he may any where else have said, be 
found utterly irreconcileable with what he hath here 
delivered, so as to convict him of being an author who 
cared not what he said; the Christian again is welcome to 
the conclusion on which his own argument will drive 
him, i. e. the total destructiQn of all evidence that rests on 
the veracity of Eusebius. 

11. And if Eusebius be not competent testimony to wbat 
Christianity was in his day, as it appeared to him ; we hold 
ourselves in readiness to receive and respect any other 
testimony of the same age, which those who shall bring 
it forward, shall be able to show to be superior to that of 
Eusebius. 

12. But the conflict itself, which this most important 
passage has excited in the learned world, has thoroughly 
winnowed it from all the chaff of sophistication, and in 
the admissions of those who have contended most stre¬ 
nuously against its pregnant consequences; we possess the 
strongest species of evidence of which any historical doc¬ 
ument whatever, is capable. 

* In these Corollaries, be it observed, we respect the wide distinction between 
his testimony to miracles ; in which he speaks as a divine, from whom therefore 
truth is not to be too rigidly expected ; and his testimony as an historian, from 
whom nothing but truth is to be endured, 

8 * 


78 


COROLLARIES. 


13. The learned Basnage* has been at the pains of ex¬ 
amining with the most critical accuracy, the curious trea¬ 
tise of Philo, on which our Eusebius builds his argument, 
that the ancient sect of the Therapeutae were really 
Christians so many centuries before Christ, and were 
actually in possession of those very writings which ha\ e 
become our gospels and epistles. 

14. Gibbon, with that matchless power of sarcasm, 
which, in so little said, conveys so much intended, and 
which carries instruction and conviction to the mind, by 
making what is said, knock at the door to ask admission 
for what is not said,f significantly tells us that, “ by prov¬ 
ing that this treatise of Philo was composed as early as 
the time of Augustus, Basnage has demonstrated, in spite 
of Eusebius , and a crowd of modern Catholics, that the 
Therapeutse were neither Christians nor monks. It still 
remains probable, (adds the historian), that they changed 
their name, preserved their manners, adopted some new 
articles of faith, and gradually became the fathers of the 
Egyptian Ascetics.”— Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , 
chap. 15, note. 

15. Under the overt sense of this important criticism, 
the sagacious historian protects his call on our observance 
of the monstrous absurdity of a modern theologian at¬ 
tempting to demonstrate what primitive Christianity was, 
in spite of the only authority from which our knowledge 
of primitive Christianity can b.e derived, and challenging 
our surrender to his peculiar view of the subject, in pre¬ 
ference to the conclusions of a crowd of modern Catholics, 
who are certainly as likely to know, and as able to judge, 
as himself. 

16. Nor are we to overlook the palpable inference, that 
a demonstration that this treatise of Philo was written as 
early as the time of Augustus ; so far from demonstrating 
the conclusion which the demonstrator aims to establish, 
demonstrates all the premises and grounds of the very 
opposite conclusion. 


* Basnage, Histoire des Juifs. 1. 2, c. 20, et seq. 

t Could any jibe be keener than his remark on the convenience of the time fixed 
on by div ine providence, for the introduction of Christianity ; when the Pagan phi¬ 
losophers, and the Pagans generally, were become quite indifferent to the old forms 
of idolatry :—“ Some deities of a more recent and fashionable cast, might soon 
have occupied the deserted temples of Jupiter and Apollo, if in the decisive mo¬ 
ment, the wisdom of providence had not interposed a genuine revelation.”—Chap 
15. How honest must the Pagan priests have been, to have owned that their rev¬ 
elations were not genuine ! 


COROLLARIES. 


79 


17. The apology for this dilemma, so sarcastically sug¬ 
gested by Gibbon, that “it is probable that these Thera- 
peutss changed their name,” conveys the real truth of the 
matter, in the equally suggested probability, that their 
name was changed for them. It was not they who embraced 
Christianity, but Christianity that embraced them. 

18. We know that those most admired compositions of 
Shakspeare and Otway, the “Hamlet” and “Venice 
Preserved,” as now presented to the public, are but little 
like the first draughts of them, as they fell from the pen of 
those great authors ; yet no one doubts their proper 
origination, nor thinks of ascribing the merit of them to 
any other than those authors, though they be re-edited 
with thousands of various readings, and we are now 
content to recognise as the best copies, the “ Hamlet ” 
according to Malone or Garrick, and the “Venice Pre¬ 
served” according to Colley Cibber. 

19. Considering the remote antiquity in which all 
evidence on the subject must necessarily be obscured. So 
positive and distinct an avowal as this, of the very highest 
authority that could possibly be, or be pretended, that the 
gospels and epistles of the New Testament, constituted 
the sacred writings of the ancient sect of the Therapeutic, 
before the era which modern Christians have unluckily 
assigned as that of the birth of Christ ; supported as that 
avowal is, by internal evidence and demonstrations of 
those scriptures themselves, even in the state in which 
they have come down to us, and explaining and account¬ 
ing as that avowal does, for all the circumstances and 
phenomena that have attended those scriptures, which 
no other hypothesis can explain or account for, without 
calling in the desperate madness of supposing the ope¬ 
ration of supernatural causes :—we hold ourselves to 
have presented a demonstration of certainty, than which 
history hath nothing more certain—that the writings con¬ 
tained in the New Testament, are hereby clearly traced 
up to the Therapeutan monks before the Augustan age ; 
and that no ancient, or equally ancient work, was ever by 
more satisfactory evidence, shown to have been the com¬ 
position of the author to whom it has been ascribed, than 
that by which the writings of the New Testament are 
proved" to have been the works of those monks. 

20. To be sure they have been re-edited from time to 
time, and all convenient alterations and substitutions 
made upon them. “ to accommodate them to the faith of the 


80 


COROLLARIES. 


orthodox”* Some entire scenes of the drama have bee 1 
rejected, and some suggested emendations of early critics 
have been adopted into the text; the names of Pontius 
Pilate, Herod, Archelaus, Caiaphas, &c. picked out of 
Josephus’s and other histories, have been substituted in 
the place of the original dramatis persona : and since it 
has been found expedient to conceal the plagiarism, to 
pretend a later date, and a wholly different origination, 
texts have been introduced, directly impugning the known 
sentiments and opinions of the original authors : by an 
exquisite shuffle of ecclesiastical management, what was 
really the origination of Christianity, has been represented 
as a corruption of it. The epocha and reign of monkish 
influence and monkish principles, has been wilfully mis¬ 
dated 5 those who are known, and demonstrated by the 
clearest evidence of independent history, to have existed 
for ages before the Christian era, are represented to have 
sprung up, in the second, third, or fourth century of that 
era ; and in spite of the still remaining awkwardness and 
hideousness of the dilemma, that so pure and holy a 
religion, should come so soon to have been so universally 
misunderstood ; the monks who originated, are branded 
as the monks who corrupted ; the makers for the marrers : 
and it has remained for Protestant illumination, after 
sixteen hundred years of dark ages, to discover evidence 
that escaped the observance of the very authorities from 
which it is derived, and to show us divine inspiration, and 
more than human means for the exaltation and improve¬ 
ment of the human character, in the hands of monks and 
solitaires, eremites and friars. 

21 . We have here the clearest and most complete 
solution of the difficulty that seems to have so much r er- 
plexed the faith of the Unitarian Christian, Evanson, in 
his Dissonance of the Four Gospels ;f namely—that though 

4 See Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society. 

t This very ingenious and interesting work, as published by one who was a 
preacher in the Unitarian connection, and who professes himself to be a disciple 
of Jesus Christ, is another, added to the many instances we meet with, of the 
correct and even powerful acting of the mind, in most able criticism, in deep re¬ 
search, and shrewd discernment, while yet labouring under an insanity, with 
respect to some particular modifications of thought, so egregious as to betrav itself 
even to the observance of a child. Mr. Evanson rejected the gospels of Matthew, 
Mark, and John, and very many parts of St. Luke ; he rejected the Epistles 
to the Romans, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, .o Titus, and the Hebrews, 
the two Epistles of Peter, the three of John, and the Revelations ; each of which 
he convicts of evident interpolation, and strong marks of forgery ; yet, be 
believed in the resurrection of Christ, and “ in all the obvious and simple, 
but important truths, of the new covenant of the gospel,”—Page 289, (d e last.) 


COROLLARIES. 


81 


they are to be received as the composition of Jews, coteni' 
poraries, and even witnesses of the scenes and actions 
they describe ; those compositions do nevertheless betray 
so great a degree of ignorance of the geography, statistics, 
and circumstances of Judea at the time supposed, as to 
put it beyond all question, that the writers were neither 
witnesses nor cotemporaries—neither Jews, nor at any 
time inhabitants of Judea. This, the learned Dr. Bret- 
schneider* has demonstrated with respect to St. John in 
particular, most convincingly, in his admirable work, 
modestly entitled, Probabilia de Evangelii Johannis indole et 
ongine ; in which he points out such mistakes and errors 
of the geography, chronology, history, and statistics of 
Judea, as no person who had ever resided in that country, 
or had been by birth a Jewf could possibly have com¬ 
mitted. 

22. The Therapeutic, we see, though not Jews, nor 
inhabitants of Palestine, were, says Eusebius, u it is likely, 
descended from Hebrews , and therefore were wont to observe 
very many of the customs of the ancients, after a more 
Jewish fashion.” Now, as those customs of the ancients 
could have been none other than ancient Pagan customs, 
their hereditary respect for every thing Jewish, accounts 
for their observing those ancient customs “ after a more 
Jewish fashion ,” and for the Jewish complexion which the 
ancient Oriental or Grecian mythology would be made to 
wear, after passing through their hands. 

23. This account of the matter is the more confirmed, 
from the entirely incidental and undesigned character of 
the admission, as it appears in Eusebius, who lets it fall, 
without the least observance of the argument with which 
it teems, and without any intention of subserving the uses 
that that argument will supply ; and still further, by the 
known character of the Jews themselves, who have in¬ 
troduced the stories of the Pagan heroes, disguised in a 
Jewish garb, into their Old Testament, turning Ipthigenia 
into Jeptha’s daughter, Hercules into Sampson, Deucalion 
into Noah, and Arion on the dolphin’s back, into Jonah in 
the whale’s belly ; &c. &c. 

24. “ The extensive commerce of Alexandria, (says 


* Bretschneider’s work has been answered, but very ridiculously, by the learned 
professor Stein, of Brandenburgh, in a work entitled, Authentia Evangelii 
Johannis Vindicata , in which Stein throws himself on the unanswerable argu¬ 
ment, of having felt that gospel so particularly comfortable to his soul ; as a proof 
of its genuineness. 


82 


COROLLARIES. 


Gibbon,) and its proximity to Palestine, gave an easy 
entrance to the new religion. It was, at first ,* embraced 
by great numbers of the Therapeutse, or Essenians, of the 
lake Mareotis, a Jewish sect which had abated much of 
its reverence for the Mosaic ceremonies. The austere 
life of the Essenians, their feasts and excommunications, 
the community of goods, their love of celibacy, their zeal 
for martyrdom, and the warmth, though not the purity of 
their faith, already offered a very lively image of the 
primitive discipline. It was in the school of Alexandria, 
that the Christian theology appears to have assumed a 
regular and scientifical form ; and when Hadrian visited 
Egypt, he found a church composed of Jews and Greeks, 
sufficiently important to attract the notice of that inqui¬ 
sitive prince.”— Gibbon , chap. 15. 

The progress of Christianity was for a long time con¬ 
fined within the limits of this single city (of Alexandria) ; 
and so slow was the progress of this religion, that not¬ 
withstanding the rhetorical flourishes and hyperbolical 
exaggerations of the Fathers, u we are possessed of an 
authentic record, which attests the state of religion in 
the first and most populous city of the then known world. 
In Rome—about the middle of the third century, and after 
a peace of thirty-eight years ; the clergy consisted but of 
one bishop, forty-six presbyters, fourteen deacons, forty-two 
acolythes , and fifty readers, exorcists and porters. We 
may venture, (concludes the great historian) to estimate 
the Christians at Rome, at about fifty thousand , when the 
total number of inhabitants cannot be taken at less than 
a million ; and of the whole Roman Empire, the most 
favourable calculation that can be deduced from the 
examples of Antioch and of Rome, will not permit us to 
imagine that more than a twentieth part of the subjects of 
the Empire had enlisted themselves under the banner of 
the cross, before the important conversion of the Emperor 
Constantine.”— Ibid. 

25. It should never be forgotten, that miraculously 
rapid as we are sometimes told the propagation of the 
gospel was, it was first preached in England by Austin, 
the monk, under commission from Pope Gregory, towards 
the end of the seventh century. So that the good news of 
salvation, in travelling from the supposed scene of action 


* Yes, at first ! at first ! Before the disciples were called Christians at Antioch 
—before the name of Jesus of JYazareth had been heard of at Je tsalem. 


COROLLARIES. 


83 


to this favoured country, may be calculated as having 
posted at the rate of almost an inch in a fortnight. 

26. This however, when compared with the rate at which 
the evidence of any beneficial effects of the religion upon 
the morals of its professors hath advanced, may be ad¬ 
mitted to be surprising velocity ; for certain it is, that not 
the most distant hearsay of such effects, had reached the 
Court of King’s Bench, Westminster, so late as the 7th of 
February, 1828. 

27. Here then have we, in the cities of Egypt, and in 
the deserts of Thebais, the whole already established 
system of ecclesiastical polity, its hierarchy of bishops, 
its subordinate clergy, the selfsame sacred scriptures, the 
selfsame allegorical method of interpreting those scrip¬ 
tures^ so convenient to admit of the evasion or amend¬ 
ment from time to time, of any defects that criticism might 
discover in them ; the same doctrines, rites, ceremonies, 
festivals, discipline, psalms, repeated in alternate verses 
by the minister and the congregation, epistles and gospels 
—in a word, the every-thing , and every iota of Christianity, 
previously existing from time immemorial, and certainly 
known to have been in existence, and as such, recorded 
and detailed by an historian of unquestioned veracity, 
living and writing at least fifty years before the earliest 
date that Christian historians have assigned to any Chris¬ 
tian document whatever. 

28. Here we see through the thin veil that would hide 
the truth from our eyes, in the admissions that Christians 
have been constrained to make, that the Therapeutse were 
certainly the first converts to the faith of Christ ; and that 
the many circumstances of doctrine and discipline, that 
they had in common with the Christians, had previously 
prepared and predisposed them to receive the gospel. 
We find that the faith of Christ actually originated with 
them, that they were in previous possession, and that 
those who, by a chronological error, or wilful misrepre¬ 
sentation, are called the first Christians, were not the 
converters of the Therapeutae, but were themselves their 
converts. 

29. This accounts for a phenomenon that every where 
meets us, and which were otherwise utterly unaccount¬ 
able ; that the religion of one who had expressly ad¬ 
monished his disciples, that his kingdom was not of this 
world, and which purports to have been first preached by 
unambitious and illiterate fishermen, should in t\ e very 


84 


COROLLARIES 


first and earliest documents of it that can be produced, 
present us with all the full ripe arrogance of an already 
established hierarchy ; bishops disputing for their pre¬ 
rogatives, and throne-enseated prelates demanding and 
receiving more than the honours of temporal sovereignty, 
from their cringing vassals, and denouncing worse than 
inflictions of temporal punishment against the heretics 
who should presume to resist their decrees, or dispute 
their authority. 

30. We find the episcopal form of government, even 
before the end of the first century, fully established ; and 
if not the very Galilean fishermen themselves, at least 
those who are called the apostolic fathers , and who are 
supposed to have received their authority and doctrine 
immediately from them, established in all the pride, pomp, 
and magnificence of sovereign pontiffs, and lords of the 
lives and fortunes,* as well as of the faith of their flocks ; 
and every where inculcating, as the first axiom of all 
morality and virtue, that there was no sin so great, as that 
of resistance to the authority of a bishop. 

31. u Since the time of Tertullian and Irenseus, it has 
been a fact, as well as a maxim, Nulla ecclesia sine episcopo 
—no church without a bishop.”— Gibbon. 

32. We find Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, even while 
the Apostles, or John, at least, is supposed to have been 
living, venturing to stake his soul for theirs, and himself 
the expiatory offering, for those who should duly obey their 
bishop ; and, 

33. Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria the very seat and 
centre of the Therapeutan doctrine, in his epistles to 
Novatius, maintains that schismatics, or those who should 
venture to follow any opinions unsanctioned by the 
bishop, were “ renegadoes, apostates, malignants, oar- 
ricides, anti-christs, blasphemers, the devil’s pr ests, 
villainous, and perfidious, were without hope, had no right 
to the promises, could not be saved, were, no more Chris*- 
tians than the devil, could not go to heaven, the hottest 
part of hell their portion, their preaching poisonous, 
their baptism pestiferous, their persons accursed, &c. 


* St. Peter put Ananias and Sapphira to death, for not giving him all the 
money he wanted.-Acts v. St. Paul ordered the Corinthian ‘‘to be delivered to 
Satan for the destruction of his flesh, tor having overlooked the rules of the 
Iherapeutan college, m a love affair.”-! Corinth, v. The power of the chu ch 

r fU% eS,ablished " h “ »<*"“«»- injustice 


COROLLARIES. 


85 


&c., and much more, to the same heavenly-temperea 
purport.”* 

34. Such a state of things, such sentiments and lan¬ 
guage, and the like thereof, invariably found as it is in 
the very earliest documents of Christianity that can be 
adduced, and attested by the corroboration of indepe ident 
historical evidence, is utterly incongruous, wholly irre- 
concileable and out of keeping with any possibility of the 
existence of the circumstances under which the Christian 
revelation is generally supposed to have made its appear¬ 
ance on earth. 

35. But it is in perfect probability and in entire coin¬ 
cidence with all the circumstances discovered to us by 
this wonderful passage of Eusebius, from whom we learn 
that the Evangelist, St. Mark, was believed to have been 
the first who extended his travels into Egypt, and became 
the founder of this same Therapeutan church, in the city of 
Alexandria, by preaching in the first instance to them, the 
gospel which has come down to us under his name.f 

36. Even the necessary decency of supposing that at 
least one of the Evangelists should have written a gospel 
in the language of his own country, has been given up 
with the pitiful apology, that the invincible unbelief of the 
Hebrew nation, rendered the gospel which St. Matthew 
may be supposed to have written in Hebrew, not worth pre¬ 
serving. So that no gospel, in the language of the country 

* Quoted in the Principles of the Cyprianic Age, p. 19. A very rare and 
curious work (by J. S. that is, John Sage, a Scottish bishop, 1695,) preserved in 
Sion College library, from whence lent to my use, by the Rev. Dr. Gaskin, Secre¬ 
tary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. 

t But what if Mark himself, as well as his colleagues, were really no Jews at all, 
but native Egyptians, and bishops of this pre-existent Iherapeutan church ; the 
words of Eusebius may present a different sense to the eye of faith, they admit of 
no other rational understanding. 

Thtov d? uayxor nijurrur ipamr tm ti;$ aiyvnro axtiXaiiBvov to tvayytXiov o Si; xai 
ovvtyQaipaTo, xtjQvgat, f xx/ojatag re noanov tn* avryg A/.ezard()eiag avaj^oaaOvn, 
rooavrij <3’ aya lav avrodt nt/ii(frtvxorwv nfofivg uvSqwt re xai yvvaixiov ex 7f()ir>T> ( $ 
s 7 ripoZt]$ avrsOTri ih aoxifitiog (ftXoOoiponartjg rs xai 0(po$Qorarr ; g, wg xai yQaipijg 
avr" aziwoai rag diaTQi[iag , xai rug ovvrpvatig ra rs avynoaia xai runuv rrv uXbfv 
r« (iie ayvryyjv rov ytkonu — i. e. “ But this Mark , they say, first betook him¬ 
self into Egypt, and preached the gospel, that which he also wrote, and 
first established the churches of Alexandria ; and such a multitude, both 
of men and women, were assembled upon his first attempt, on account of 
his more philosophical and severe asceticism, that Philo held it worthy to 
commit to writing an account of their exercises and assemblies, their 
meals, and their whole discipline of life.” Such is the whole of the 15th 
chapter of the second book of Eusebius-’s Ecclesiastical History, discovering to us, 
the now demonstrated and indisputable fact, that monkery or asceticism, was the 
first and earliest type of Christianity ; that its first preachers were monks ; and 
that not only the doctrines, but that the gospels which contain them, were already 
sxtant in the world, many years before the epocha assigned to the birth of Christ. 

9 


86 


CORROBORATIONS. 


in which its stupendous events are said to have happened, 
can be shown to have been ever in existence. 

We should naturally think, that any thing rather than an 
account of events that had really happened, must have 
been intended by English authors, who chose to write the 
history of England, in any other language than English. 
But the conduct of the Evangelists is still more unaccount¬ 
able, in that they must have gone so much out of their 
way, to deprive their countrymen of the knowledge of 
salvation, to write in a language, that ’tis certain they 
could never have understood themselves, without divine 
inspiration. Are we to suppose that persons of their mean 
and humble rank, in the most barbarous province of the 
Roman Empire, were better educated than persons of the 
same calling at this day in any country in Christendom, 
and that the fishermen of the Galilean lake, could handle 
the pen of the ready writer, in an age, ages before the age, 
in which, as yet, even prelates, priests, and princes, were 
marksmen, and comprehended their whole extent of litera¬ 
ture, in the sign of the X. 

CHAPTER XI. 

CORROBORATIONS OF THE EVIDENCE ARISING FROM THE 

ADMISSIONS OF EUSEBIUS, IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

ITSELF. 

In order to enable the reader to see and apply the force 
of these admissions and their corollaries, arid for the 
innumerable necessities of reference throughout this 
Diegesis, I have presented him with the best account of 
the times and places usually assigned as those of the first 
publication of the several books of the New Testament, 
on the very highest authority that Christians themselves 
can affect to refer to on this subject, which he will find in 
the chapter of Tables. 

1. Upon referring to this, it will be seen, that the high- 
est authorities admit, that all of the epistles were written 
some considerable time before any of the four gospels ; 
and as a necessary consequence it follows, that they must 
have been written at a still more considerable length of 
time, before any one of those gospels could have come into 
general use and notoriety. 

2. Nor must we forget, that from the very nature of 
epistolary writing, the information contained in letters, 


CORROBORATIONS 


87 


that would necessarily be put in the channel of conveyance 
to the persons to whom they were addressed, immediately 
upon being* written, must as necessarily outrun the slow 
gradual and uncertain arrival of information conveyed in 
general treatises, which were no more one man’s business 
than another’s, and which might remain unknown to the 
majority of Christians, even on the very site of their most 
extended publication. 

3. Add too, the equally essential calculation of the effect 
of distance of places, in those remote ages, when our arts 
and means of conveyance were utterly unknown, which 
would necessarily render a published narration of events 
that had occurred in a distant province, of infinitely 
tardier authentication, than any epistles sent by hand, as 
those of the New Testament purport to be, and only pass¬ 
ing to and from the comparatively neighbouring cities of 
Corinth, Ephesus, and Thessalonica. 

4. Upon the admitted fact, that the most important of 
these epistles, (say, that to the Galatians) was written 
eleven or twelve years before the earliest date of any one 
of our gospels, we may fairly put in challenge, that that, 
or any other of the epistles, must have been received, 
read, and known, even many years, before the credit of 
the gospels was established. 

5. These admissions seem to have been yielded, with 
however ill a grace, by theologians, on account of the 
manifestly greater difficulties, that would attend the ad¬ 
mission of the opposite hypothesis ; to wit, that, of the 
prior existence and prevalence of the gospels ; which would 
palpably throw the language and style of these epistles in 
reference to those gospels, sheer out of the latitude of ail 
possibility of being received as the compositions of the 
cotemporaries of the Evangelists. 

6. Nor is there more than one single passage in the 
whole of these epistles, that so much as appears to con¬ 
flict with this arrangement ; and as that is a verbal coinci¬ 
dence merely, it can hardly be held sufficient to over¬ 
throw the universal consent supported by the manifest 
sense and character of every other chapter and verse of 
those epistles. 

That passage is 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25, referring to the insti¬ 
tution of the sacrament, in which the Apostle says, “ / 
have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, 
that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, 
took bread, and when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, 
Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you : this do in 


88 


CORROBORATIONS. 


remembrance of me. After the same manner also , he took the 
cup , when he had supped , saying , TAis cup is the New Testa¬ 
ment in my blood : this do , as oft as ye drink it , m remem¬ 
brance of me. 

This passage, indeed, has the appearance of being a 
direct quotation from the text of Luke’s gospel, xxii. 
verses 19, 20. “ And he took bread , and gave thanks , and 

brake it , and gave unto them , saying , This is my body , which is 
given for you : this do in remembrance of me. Likewise also the 
cup , after supper , saying , This cup is the New Testament in my 
blood , which is shed for you.” 

If there were no relieving alternative, but that the 
former of these passages must be acknowledged to be 
a quotation from the latter, as certainly no work could be 
quoted before it existed ; the arrangement, which it will 
be seen by Dr. Lardner’s table, makes the Epistle to have 
been written at least six years before the Gospel, is con¬ 
victed of anachronism ; and as far as this evicTence is con¬ 
cerned divines are thrown again upon the stakes of all 
the difficulties that attend the hypothesis they have been 
at such pai'ns to evade. 

1. But the evidently mystical sense of the wortjs them¬ 
selves. 

2. The distinct declaration of the apostle in this place, 
that he had received what he delivered from the Lord ; 

3. And in other places (Gal. i. 11), that “ the gospel ivhich 
he preached was not after man ; for he neither received it of man , 
neither was he taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ; 

4. The most striking resemblance and coincidence of 
these words with the formularies and ritual of the Pagan 
mysteries of Eleusis ; 

5. And the admission in the prefa-ce of Luke’s Gospel, 
that his work was only a compilation of previously existing 
documents, and derived in common with the works which 
many had taken in hand before him to copy from the 
Diegesis,* or original narration preserved in the sacred 
archives of the church : 

These are arguments entirely sufficient to relieve the 
dilemma, and to leave it rather probable that Luke took his 

* The first verse of St. Lime’s Gospel, if Gospel-readers could but see what 
was under their nose, would prevent their ever more pretending that the Gospels 
were original compositions. “ Forasmuch as many had taken in hand to set 
the Diegesis in order” which was the original from which the Apocryphal 
Gospels were taken, and afterward , the improved versions ascribed to Matthew, 
Maik, and Luke, which obtained final approbation, and so caused not only the 
previous versions, but the Diegesis itself, from which they were all taken, to be 
laid aside. 


CORROBORATIONS. 


89 


account from the same document which the apostle had pre¬ 
viously quoted, or even from the text of the apostle himself. 

Thus, no exception from the general rule remains ; and 
we must admit, with all its consequences, the prior exist¬ 
ence of these epistolary writings, detailing, as they do, the 
history of communities of Christians, and fully established 
churches in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, 
Colosse, and Thessalonica, “ rooted and grounded in the 
faith” — u beloved of God,”— u called of Christ Jesus,”— u in 
every thing enriched, in all utterance and all knowledge ,”— 
“ coming behind in no good gift,” and having, as the apostle, 
in the case of the Galatian church, emphatically declares, 
so certainly received the only true and authentic Gospel, 
that u if even the apostle himself, or an angel from heaven 
should preach any other gospel than that which they had received, 
let him be accursed.” Gal. i. 8.— See Syntagma of the 
Evidences, p. 75. 

6. Here we find the Gospel already so fully established, 
that there was a sense in which it could be said that it had 
been preached unto every creature under heaven (Colos. i. 23), 
before the date assigned to any one of the gospels that have 
come down to us, before any one of the disciples had suf¬ 
fered martyrdom, before any one of them could have com¬ 
pleted his commission. Here we find a spiritual dynasty 
established, exercising the most tremendous authority ever 
grasped by man, not merely pver the lives and fortunes, 
minds and persons, but over the supposed eternal desti¬ 
nies of its enslaved and degraded vassals, and confirmed 
by so strong an influence over all their powers of resistance, 
that its haughty possessor could bear them witness that they 
icere ready to pluck their eyes out, and give*them to him. Here 
we find churches already perfectly organized u to their 
power,” yea (and the Apostle boasts), beyond their power, 
contributing to the pomp and splendour of their ministers, 
and beseeching them, icith much entreaty, to take their mo¬ 
ney from them.* (2 Cor. viii. 4). 

7. Here we find the distinct orders of bishops and deacons 
already reigning in the plenitude of their distinctive autho¬ 
rities ; and the bishops, forsooth, the proudest of the proud, 
already of such long prescription in their seat of power, 
as often to have abused that power, and to need admoni¬ 
tions u not to be self-willed, not to be given to wine, no strikers, 

* And what goes with the story of the Apostles, meeting with such ill success 
as to have to lay down their lives for their testimony ? It is not only not true, 
out not conceivable to be true ; it out-herod’s Herod, and out-lies the consistency 
of romance itself. 9* 


90 


REFERENCES. 


and not given to filthy lucre,” (Tit. i. 7,) as some of that 
right-reverend order mast have been proved to he, ere 
such admonitions could have been called for ; yet called 
for they were, and necessary they had become, as the 
reader will see by the table, some eight or ten years before 
me date assigned to the writing of the four Gospels. 

“ The Essenians, of whom Philo has written the history, 
were confessedly Pythagorians, and l think we may see 
some traces of these people among the Druids. They ex¬ 
isted before Christianity, and lived in buildings called 
monasteria or monasteries, and were called Koinobioi* 
or Coenobites. They were of three kinds, some never mar¬ 
ried, others of them did. They are most highly spoken of 
by all the authors of antiquity who have named them.”— 
The Celtic Druids, by Godfrey Higgins, Esq. f a. d. 1827, p. 125. 

Were there any degree of difficulty in accounting for 
such a scheme of tyrannous aggrandisement, and of ob¬ 
taining unbounded power and influence over the subju¬ 
gated reason of mankind, philosophy, that forbids all sup¬ 
position of supernatural agency, would acknowledge that 
difficulty ; but to imagine any, in accounting for the rise 
and progress of Christianity, we must, by a laborious effort 
of imagination, imagine nature to be the very reverse in 
every thing from what we experience it to be ; we must 
suppose a man to be at a loss to find his own head ; we 
must suppose Infinite Wisdom teaching trickery to a thief, 
and the orchestra of the spheres supplying resin for a 
fiddlestick—introducing our God not to extricate the mys¬ 
tery of the scene, but to sweep the stage, and grease the 
pulleys. * 

CHAPTER XII. 

REFERENCES TO THE MONKISH OR THERAPEUTAN DOCTRINES, 
TO EE TRACED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

1. “ Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their's is the kingdom of 
heaven —Matt. v. 3. 

This, the first principle put into the mouth of the Gali¬ 
lean Thaumaturge, was also the first principle of the 

* Koirofltoi —living m common. Acts iv. 32. Hi/ avroic anavra xoiva —“ they 
had all things in common .” 

■\ Mr. Higgins’s testimony is the more valuable, as it t* that of a witness 
averse to the conclusions to which he marshals us the way. His splendid work, 
instructive and interesting as it is in the highest degree, though superfluously ortho* 
dox, has delightfully beguiled the tedium of many of my prison-hours ' 


REFERENCES. 


91 


Therapeutae, and as such had been known and taught for 
ages before the time assigned to the first publication of 
the Gospel. 

It is to be found in the previously existing writings of 
Menander, in the sentence vouitorO* oi ntvijreg rwv -decur — 
We ought to consider the poor as especially belonging to the 
gods ; and in the ancient Latin adage, “ Bonae mentis 
soror paupertas”— Poverty is the sister of a good mind. It 
is observable, that this Menander the comedian, is not 
only quoted by name, by the first of the Fathers (not 
apostolical), Justin Martyr, in his apology to the Emperor 
Adrian, as one of the authorities with whom the Christians 
held so many sentiments in common, but is again plagi¬ 
arised into the text of 1 Cor. xv. 33 —Qownv ^ zq'i*# 9 
ouuiai xaxai — u Evil communications corrupt good man¬ 
ners.” 

2. u And the disciples came and said unto him , Why speakest 
thou unto them in parables ? He answered and said unto them , 
Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom 
of heaven , but to them it is not given.'' —Matt. xiii. 10. u Unto 
you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God, but 
unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables ; 
that seeing, they may see and not perceive, and hearing, they may 
hear and not understand ."—Mark iv. 11. 

Surely, here, and in the innumerable passages to the 
same effect, the principle of deceiving the vulgar is held 
forth in its most disgusting deformity. Here the double 
and mystical-sense system, as adopted by the Therapeutse^ 
is put in full exemplification. 

3. “ And there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs 
for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, 
let him receive it." —Matt. xix. 12. 

Let the reader only ask himself the obvious questions, 
what eunuchs could they be ? Certainly, not followers of 
the law of Moses, which held a personal defect, however 
involuntarily incurred, as disqualifying the unfortunate 
from ever entering into the congregation of the Lord, 
Deut. xxiii. 1. Nor was a future state of rewards ever 
propounded to the selfishness or ambition of the children 
of Israel. 

4. John the Baptist is described as a Monk , residing in 
the wilderness, practising all the austerities of the contem¬ 
plative life, neither eating nor drinking in observance of the 
demands of nature ; “ his food was locusts and wild-honey 
and not only a monk, but a father confessor, since “ all 
the land of Judea, and they of Jerusalem, were all bap- 


92 


REFERENCES 


tized of him, confessing their sins.” Here, then, is certainly 
an Ascetic—in the strictest circumstances of description, 
a Monkish confessor —the admitted forerunner of Christ, of 
whom he is represented as saying, that “ Moses and the 
prophets were until John the Baptist, but since then the 
kingdom of God* was preached.” The great absurdity, 
however, of representing the sinless Jesus as receiving 
* baptism of John for the remission of his sins, would have 
been evaded, had the compilers of our Gospels stuck to 
the text of the Gospel according to the Hebrews, or that 
of these Hebrew-descended Therapeuts, which Lessing 
and Niemeyerf have so convincingly shown to have been 
the original from which their legends are copied, and from 
which it appears that Jesus actually refused to be bap¬ 
tized, saying, “ What sin have I committed, that I should 
be baptized by him ?” And how could that horrible spe¬ 
cies of self-martyrdom, the greatest evidence of sincerity 
in the faith that could be imagined, have been practised 
u for the kingdom of heaven's sake,” if the kingdom of heaven 
had not been propounded to the faith of these visionaries 
as the reward of such a sacrifice, sufficiently long before, 
and sufficiently notoriously, to be quoted thus as an his¬ 
torical example, bv the speaker in the text of Matthew ? 

It is evident that Origen, the most distinguished and 
learned of all the Christian Fathers, must have read 
Christ’s recommendation of this suicidal act in its very 
strongest sense, or have found it in some earlier copies of 
the Gospel than have come down to 11 s, urged in stronger 
terms, or his excellent understanding would never have 
fallen under the horrors of a belief that it was necessary to 
imitate the example thus commended, and to prepare him¬ 
self for singing in heaven, by spoiling his voice for preach¬ 
ing upon earth. 

5. But Matt, xviii. 15, betrays, in the most indisputable 
evidence, the previous existence and established discipline 
of a Christian church, such as that of the Therapeutse is 
described to have been, from any length of time anterior to 
the Christian era. 

“ Moreover, if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go 
and tell him his fault between thee and him alone : if he shall 
hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother: 16 But if he will not 
hear thee , then take with thee one or two more , that in the 

* This phrase, the kingdom of God, and all its synonymes, was peculiarly 
chai acteristic of the monkish fraternity of Egypt—the dynasty of priests, as para¬ 
mount to that of kings. r 

t Quoted in Marsh’s Michaelis, and hereafter in this Diegesis 


REFERENCES. 


93 


month of two or three witnesses , every word may be established. 
17 And if he shall neglect to hear them , tell it unto The 
Church : but if he neglect to hear The Church, let him 
be unto thee an heathen man and a publican . 18 Verily , I say 

unto you , Whatsoever ye shall bind on earth , shall be bound in 
heaven ,” &c. &c. 

If this does not involve all that the unwary admissions 
of Eusebius and Epiphanius would lead us to, even the 
previous existence of the whole Christian dynasty in all 
its corruption, or in all its purity, long anterior to any time 
when such language could have been used, or the Gospel 
which contained such language could have been written ; 
if it betray not its design to subserve the purposes of eccle¬ 
siastical usurpation ; if it savour not of popery in the 
rankest tank that ever pope himself was popish ; there 
is no skill in criticism to discover any truth below the 
surface of expression—no wrong in any wrong that can 
be put off as right—no Rome in Italy—no day-light in the 
sun-shine. 

6. u Remember the words of the Lord Jesus , how he said , It is 
more blessed to give than to receive .”—Acts xx. 35. 

No such words as these are contained in either of our 
four Gospels ; they must, therefore have been contained 
in some gospel which previously existed, which was known 
and established in the esteem of the persons who were 
thus reminded of it, and which therefore ought not to have 
been rejected. 

“ It is, I think,” says Lardner, (vol 1, p. 71, 4to. edit.) 
“ a just observation of Dr. Prideaux, that almost all that 
is peculiar in this sect, is condemned by Christ and his 
apostles.” 

But from this admission fohows, at any rate, the cer¬ 
tainty of the previous notoriety of this sect, and of t 1 ose 
tenets which were peculiar to it 

And if, excepting the “ almost all that was peculiar to this 
sect” which Christ and his apostles condemned, there yet 
remained something which was peculiar to this sect, which 
they adopted, what other conclusion can follow, than tha+ 
the Christian tenets were but a reformation upon the pre 
existent Essenian principles, and had no claim of them¬ 
selves to a character of originality ? We say, in like 
manner, at this day, that our Protestant church condemns 
almost all that is peculiar to the church of Rome, while in 
that condemnation itself is involved an admission of its 
prior existence, and of its common origin. There can be 


94 


REFERENCES. 


no conceivable reason why the peculiar tenets of a parti¬ 
cular sect should be singled out for particular condemna¬ 
tion, unless the condemners stood in some more imme¬ 
diate relation, or knew something more particularly of the 
tenets so condemned, than of any other condemnable 
tenets. 

The force of so particular a condemnation of almost all 
that was peculiar, involves as particular an approbation and 
sanction of whatever it was that was not included in so 
particular a condemnation. 

Not to object, that, in ordinary fairness, the gaugingof 
the Essenian tenets so as to determine which , and how many 
of them, amounted to almost all , should hardly be trusted to 
the fidelity of those who have the strongest interest in dis¬ 
paraging and under-rating those tenets. 

Again, the conjoining Christ and his Apostles as concurring 
in the condemnation of almost all that was peculiar to this 
sect, is assuming a concurrence unsupported by evidence, 
and inconsequential in reason. 

It by no means follows, that he and they , in every in¬ 
stance, must have approved and condemned by the same 
rule ; the need they had of being instructed by him, is a 
reason , and the rebukes they frequently received from him, 
is a proof, that their judgments and his might be the reverse 
of each other. 

Nor is it a just and fair conclusion, that all the apostles 
of Christ condemned what it cannot be shown that more 
than one of them condemned, and which all the rest may 
in all probability have approved. 

Nor, if it be Paul alone who hath condemned, is it just 
or fair to conclude that even one of the apostles of Christ 
has done so ; since the claim of Paul to be considered as 
one of the apostles of Christ, rests on his own presumption 
only, and, to say the least against it, is in the highest de¬ 
gree questionable.* 

Surely, nothing could be more peculiar to any sect, than 
the conceit of making themselves u Eunuchs for the king¬ 
dom of heaven's sake and as surely, it is any other sort 
of language rather than that of condemnation, in which 
Christ is represented as speaking of that peculiarity 
Matt. xix. 12. 


* He is recognized only in the 2d Fpistle of Peter, chap. iii. verse 14 , as a 
beloved brother, which itself is no style or designation of apostleship, even if the 
authenticity of this epistle, in which it is contained, were indisputable, which it is 
not.—See Marsh's Michaelis, in loco. 


REFERENCES. 


95 


What the other peculiarities of this sect were, may be 
collected from the version I have given of the text of 
Eusebius on the subject. 

Miohaelis supplies, from the further authorities of Philo, 
from Josephus, Solinus, and Pliny, that their principles 
were generally derived from the Oriental or Gnostic Phi¬ 
losophy, of which they observed the moral part, while they 
rejected all its more absurd and egregious metaphysical 
speculations.* They abstained from blood, and would no* 
even offer a sacrifice, because they regarded the slaying 
of beasts as sinful. 

Most of them abstained from marriage, and thought it 
an obstacle to the search after wisdom. 

The places in which they pursued their meditations, 
and which they held sacred, were called ^ouxar^ia (that is, 
Monasteries). “ All ornamental dress they detested.”—- 
Michaelis , vol. 4, p. 83. 

7. Whose language, then, but their’s, or of the followers 
of their sect, could that be ? 

u Whose adorning , let it not be that outward adorning of 
plaiting the hair , and of wearing of gold , or of putting on of 
apparel ,” &c.—1 Pet. iii. 3. 

u Not with broidered hair , or gold , or pearls , or costly array” 
—1 Tim. ii. 9. 

“ They maintained a perfect community of goods, 
and an equality of external rank, considering vassalage 
as a violation of the laws of nature.”— Michaclis , vol. 4, 
p. 83. 

What could more naturally and directly tend to render 
their system acceptable to the poor, and to spread it at any 
time among those who had neither honour nor wealth to 
lose ? What language could more nearly describe the 
primitive condition of the evangelical community as pour- 
trayed in Acts iv. 32, or more entirely harmonize with 
those words ascribed to Christ ? 

8. u Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion 
over them , and they that are great exercise authority upon 
them. But it shall not be so among you ; but whosoever will 
be great among yow, let him be your minister ; and whosoever 
will be chief among you , let him be your servant .”—Matt, 
xx. 25. 

* That is, “ they were the Eclectic Philosophers, who rejected the evil, and 
chose the good, out of every system of religion or philosophy that had been pro¬ 
pounded to mankind, and who had a flourishing university already established at 
Alexandria when our Saviour was upon earth.”— JHosheim. 




35 




w mrt 




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«^i*r ^ XfS rjarr e^eem i» ia^of «6eaxjes« vmciinda #• 
lie w*rsc troika^ Bevvc-nrur a* tkcsr Jt'JUUfte^ ■ c^7 

HMHi?r tiif iy»iL sniJflL Y*~ eesur n vomm u xx iu T^nej 
arcrfmaeL & ramra. » cue 5 s&c«isX'-£jlt, 

x jts Cue e^fsesicik. me ^ccssse cue araneer eexezL r* 

~^rtrr uii :uir cue sines <t£ x suucre v dwse atf a icuir 
tiba£c £ Tyr^oc znusc tftlav^HckcHinpW| 

^ mrx cuej afei til 1<it*i *ticj rm-. mix fcmaei ft * ?ci»;t 
tilj TC'deajaex xi* W nerr^ex irian stair miuesccs- 
ji icv cj ugcaatiiii c dear jest trtL iwcmiM 

jm —teirf Aar sen vmcsaftfiMiii 
mmumb xiwtsv — Nzr :s i «ue -scj «a£x cau d*eT «k^ 
funwd sic? JiHCfAa&. — i*m iulxt ixr-fi- it eaci errr - 
nur cue pwa^r ir die factHB is esjwnQbr 
imifiUL 3CnnH??rs* : 7 ~cs -^riir^iein: xl ec l*’_ct i 
ami ie.'sjsiiT nrciaes ±-;hl ^vraadh k su**iu£ 
asor die i^L-^uistusHntSL it cue ir:rjL zr;en_ cue 
iaci?arr- — 2r is naxieiC.* cr^ s 

cue JLitSiie ~i die Ii niiaa^ cc x: cue 
die lee 41 Tenuidj- Trere v c^e xr—d x -oev 
dbe seen Pur e~ec die tot i« 4 xrViiiL r d*; ; 
tl iesrc :cx xiieur xetnexs. ere Pit cue ciis: :;ec 
iy S 

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i ! ■■ flUA dc iklT -tfTfci » *if n if _^nrL 

^ ^ r f 


fe mi erilwr ArifarAat vhnepat mIb 
frjHufc. it ~c? XK:rjS!L sul e^jueeLcy er—uraV :a*n «c eve 
—^ n: euuures ;e cinse $«smsxxaciissL im«4«iarje* dm 

die u” i TT ;.e jL»-~'d_tLX e*ds». Sere JLmili^ftv ic P lzx^c- 









REFERENCES. 


97 

name ; born in the very metropolis in which the Essenian 
sect was of highest repute; ere any one of the apostles 
can be pretended to have preached the Gospel in that 
country ; already instructed in the way of the Lord, and 
set up as a preacher of that in Ephesus. And onr most 

learned critic rather maintains than conceals the incontro¬ 
vertible fact, that 4 "the earliest and principal members of 
the Christian community were atta^ ir d to this sect.”— 
Michatlvt , vol. 4, p. 88. 

Sorely, then, it is only want of moral fortitude, and 
an unwilli ngness to embrace troths contrary to precon¬ 
ceived prejudices, that hinders man from seeing troths 
so evident, as that this Essenian or Therapeotan sect 
itself were, as Eusebius has honestly admitted them to be, 
Christians ; that Alexandria, and not Jerusalem, was the 
cradle of the infant church : that their ancient scriptures 
were the first types of die Gospels and Epistles ; that the 
natural and probable parts of the Acts of the Apostles, are 
journals of the real adventures of schismatical mission¬ 
aries from this ancient fraternity of «tfwh. who. after 
leaving their monasteries in the deserts of Thebais. cut 
out to themselves a new path to fame and fortune, by 
throwing od" the stricter discipline of their mother church, 
opposing its less popular doctrines, and retaining what 
they chose to retain, in such new-fangled or refonntd 
guise, as to sure them the advantage of Laying claim either 
to antiquity or originality. as their drift of argument might 
require. Like die Protestant reformers in later ages, 
those who Ttrre called Ckrixuma Jfcrsf at .io.'i cA. turned 
round upon their ecclesiastical superiors, heaped all 
manner of abuse and misrepresentation upon them and 
their tenets, and pretended to a purer system of doctrine, 
and even a higher antiquity, than the church from which 
they sprang. 

^ It is not impcssfrie though dll further proof be 
sriven. it cannot he asserted as a tact that the Fmg mhnmi 
Jn es. cjwrvttis. mW Sw& them to call seer them a :hkk 

W ml the same if the Ltrrd JsrvfS (Acts xix. 13.) 

were likewise Esse *es: tec it is wed known that the 
Esso 's aptx ed tnemseLves t : superstitiofw arts, and 
ivetended t have cv n verse w i th spirits. Sxne of them 
Lud daw* to the sift «f prophecy. of which we find many 
hrtnirrr tr ^ aarf of whack we i*d as certainty. 

^ v ar instances :f the same ciaim. advance: by the brst 
preachers and earnest members jf the Chrisdaoi com 
10 



98 


REFERENCES 


munity: so that the only question on this evidence is 
which party had the juster claim to a faculty, of which 
reason denies the possibility to either? In a word, we 
have only to decide who were the greater —that is, the 
more successful impostors. 

“ Among the first professors of Christianity,” says 
Mosheim, “ there were few men of learning—few who 
had capacity enough to insinuate into the minds of a gross 
and ignorant multitude , the knowledge of divine things, God, 
therefore, in his infinite wisdom, judged it necessary to raise 
up in many churches, extraordinary teachers, who were to 
discourse in the public assemblies, upon the various points 
of the Christian doctrine, and to treat with the people in 
the name of God, as guided by his direction, and clothed 
with his authority. Such were the prophets of the New 
Testament. They were invested with the power of cen¬ 
suring publicly such as had been guilty of any irregularity; 
but to prevent the abuses which designing men might 
make of this institution, by pretending to this extraor¬ 
dinary character, in order to execute unworthy ends, 
there were always present in the public auditories, judges 
divinely appointed, who, by certain and infallible 
marks, were able to distinguish the false prophets from 
the true. This order of prophets ceased, when the want of 
teachers, which gave rise to it, was abundantly supplied.” 
— Mosh. Eccl. Hist . vol. 1, p. 102. 

The mind smarts for the degradation which the necessity 
of maintaining popular delusion could impose on so intel¬ 
ligent and highly-cultivated a scholar, in obliging him to 
descend to this language of utter idiotcy,—this reasoning 
that might disgrace the nursery. Here is infinite wisdom, 
to be sure, having recourse to expedients to insinuate its 
communications into the minds of the gross and ignorant 
multitude; divinely raised-up prophets , clothed with the 
authority of God himself; and divinely appointed judges , 
clothed with still higher authority, to judge whether 
infinite wisdom was right or wrong, but leaving the gross 
and ignorant multitude as much in need as ever of some 
other divinely appointed, still higher judges, to judge 
whether the other judges judged fairly; as his certain that 
the gross and ignorant multitude, for whose benefit the divine 
insinuations were intended, were held to be no judges at 
all, and God or Devil was all as one to them. How must 
a man have looked when he reasoned thus? But the 
absurdity of this reasoning is not worse than an attempt 


REFERENCES. 99 

to give respectability to the authority which makes it the 
best account that can be given of the matter. 

10. u How is it ,” asks the Apostle himself, that “ every 
one of you hath a psalm , hath a doctrine , hath a tongue , 
hath a revelation ? If there come in those that are unlearned , or 
unbelievers , will they not say that ye are mad ?—1 Cor. xiv. 
23. 

Could language convey clearer evidence, that in the 
worst and grossest sense of what Philo or Josephus have 
represented the Essenian churches to have been, that in 
reality the first assemblies of these primitive Christians 
were. And this is a state of things described as obtaining, 
several years before the writing of any one of our four 
Gospels. 

If there were really any features of distinctive and 
different origination between these long anterior Thera- 
peutan societies, and those who, in an after-age, acquired 
the name of Christian churches, all traces of that dis¬ 
tinctiveness are lost. To all scope of history, and possi¬ 
bility of understanding, they must be pronounced and 
considered to be, one and the same class and order of 
religious fanatics. 

As for the pretence to any thing supernatural, phi¬ 
losophy teaches us to view it only as a certain and 
incontestible mark of imposture, by whomsoever ad¬ 
vanced. Prophecy! the very name of such a thing is a 
surrender of all pretence to evidence ; ’tis the la 1 - 
guage of insanity! The fetor of the charnel-house is rot 
more charged with its admonition to our bodily health, 
to withdraw from the proximities of death, than the 
cracky sound of the thing is, with warning to our reason, 
that we are out of the regions of sobriety, wherever it is 
so much as seriously spoken of: no honest man ever 
pretended to it. 

11. Matthew (xviii. 18) relates a story of Jesus rebuking 
a devil who kept his hold so obstinately on the body of a 
boy, that his disciples, with all the miraculous powers 
with which he had previously gifted them, were unable to 
cast him out ; which Jesus is represented as accounting 
for by saying, u Howbeit this kind gocth not out but by fasting 
and prayer.” —Matt, xviii. 21. 

“ Now we know,” says Michaelis, “ that the Jews 
ascribed almost all diseases to the influence of evil spirits. 
To cure a disease, therefore, was, according to their 
notions, to expel an evil spirit : this they pretended to 


100 


REFERENCES. 


effect by charms and herbs; and we have seen from Euse¬ 
bius, what extraordinary efficacy and virtue the Thera 
peutans ascribed to prayer and fasting.” 

12. The whole doctrine of election, which distinguishes 
the epistolary writings of St. Paul, is but an application 
to the persons whom he addresses, of the notions which 
the Jews from previous ages had maintained, whose hopes 
of acceptance with God were founded on the merits of 
their ancestry. We have Abraham to our father , is repre¬ 
sented as the reason they offered, why they had no need 
to bring forth fruits meet for repentance. One of their 
principal maxims was, ion chm p n rr6 w bmtjr Sd— that 
is, u All Israel have the portion of eternal life allotted to 
them.” 

Another of the Jewish doctrines is, “ God promised 
to Abraham, that if his children were wicked, he would 
consider them as righteous on account of the sweet odour 
of his circumcised foreskin.”* 

The holding out a similar inducement to the selfishness 
and cruelty of the Gentile nations, with reservation of 
Jewish prerogative, constituted all the difference of the 
reformed Esseneism , after it took the name of Christianity. 

13. The allegorical method of expounding their scrip¬ 
tures, so characteristic of the Therapeutan monks, we find 
entirely adopted and avowed by Paul, in his Epistle to 
the Galatians, chap. 4. in which, of the most simple and 
obvious apparent facts of the Old Testament, he asserts, 
u which things are an allegory .” The two sons of Abraham 
are to be understood as two covenants ; his kept-mistress 
is a mountain in Arabia ; and, again, the mountain in 
Arabia, is the city Jerusalem. 

14. Again, in 2 Cor. iii. 6, the allegorical method, so 
entirely Essenian, is spoken of as the chief design and 
intention of the Gospel ministry, and that too, even with 
respect to the sense of writings which constituted what 
was known and recognized as the New Testament , when 
this epistle was written, of which, therefore, the four Gos¬ 
pels which have come down to us, could have constituted 
no part; as it will be seen by the table, that they were 
not written till six or seven years after this epistle. 

u God also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament , 
not of the letter , but of the spirit , for the letter killeth ,” &c. * 
which principle the Christian Fathers carried to such an 

* Pugip Fidej. v. S, dis. 3, cap. lb, quoted in Michaelis, vol. 4. p. 95. 


REFERENCES. 


101 

extent, that they hesitated not to admit jthat the Gospels 
themselves were not defensible as truth according- to their 
literal text. “ There are things contained therein,” says 
Origen,* “ which, taken in their literal sense, are mere 
falsities and lies.” And of the whole divine letter, 
St. Gregory! asserts, that “it is not only dead, but 
deadly.” And Athanasius^ admonishes us, that “ should 
we understand sacred writ accordiug to the letter, we 
should fall into the most enormous blasphemies.” 

15. Many objectionable tenets of the Essenian sect are 
reproved and opposed in passages of Paul’s epistles, too 
numerous to be quoted; but all in the manner and style 
of one who had been particularly acquainted with those 
tenets, and who admitted and recognized their affinity 
and relation to the Christian doctrines, as much nearer 
than any of the errors or absurdities of the other forms of 
heathenism. 

16. Throughout all these epistles, we find the Gospel 
spoken of by all the varieties of designation that could be 
applied to it, as already preached, as read in all the 
churches, as the rule of faith, the test of orthodoxy—as 
being then of high antiquity—containiug all the received 
doctrines with respect to the life and adventures of Jesus 
Christ, all that was necessary to make a man wise unto 
salvation through faith in Christ Jesus: how he died for 
our sins , according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried; 
and that he rose again the third day, according to the Scrip¬ 
tures. —1 Cor. xv. 4. 

17. Upon the strength and faith of these doctrines, we 
find churches already established, and the distinct orders 
of bishops, elders or priests, and deacons, as described by 
Philo, already of so long standing, and of such high 
honour and emolument, that it could have become a 
common adage, that u if a man desire the office of a bishop , 
he desireth a good work ; ” many of the community having 
held that office in such a way as to render it necessary, in 
the election of future bishops, that care should be had, to 
appoint such as should be “ not given to wine, no strikers, 
not greedy of filthy lucre,” &c.—1 Tim. iii. 3. 

And this was the state of things, in actual existence, be¬ 
fore the writing of any one of the four gospels. 

18. “ In my father’s house are many mansions; I go to 

* Horn. 6, in Tsaiah, fol. 106. D. 
t Comment, on 2 Kings, c. 7. 
j Questiones ad Antiochum. tom. 2. p. 357, D. 

10* 


102 


REFERENCES. 


prepare aplace*for you.”—John xiv. 2. A fair translation 
of the passage would render it u In my father’s house are 
many monasteries .”— rr i oixia Tov porai noMcu 

eioir. 

The translation here, egregiously protestantizes. Monas¬ 
tery is the correct rendering of the word ; and of all 
possible derivatives and combinations of it; the leading or 
radical idea is, a solitary abode , where each individual is 
excluded, or excludes himself, from intercourse with others. 

To those who consider Monachism, or Monkery, as a 
corruption of Christianity, sprung up in some later 
age, this and such like texts must bear the appearance 
of interpolations, or modernisms, tending to betray a 
later date than that challenged for these writings. But, 
taking nature for our guide, we must necessarily con¬ 
clude, that an imperfect and defective system was infi¬ 
nitely more likely to improve by time, and gradually to 
throw off its original imperfections and defects, than a 
system that started from a state of excellence and per¬ 
fection at first, to become in a few ages entirely deterio¬ 
rated and corrupted. 

The positive evidence, then, of Philo, to the prior exist¬ 
ence of Monkery, has that challenge on our conviction, 
which must ever attend the highest species of testimony, 
when borne to the highest degree of probability. 

19. In the first verse of the Epistle to the Philippians, 
there is a distinction made between the general congre¬ 
gation of the Saints , or Christians, and the Bishops and 
Deacons, which, by the learned Evanson, is adduced as 
an instance savouring very strongly of a much later age 
than that of the Apostles .—Dissonance , p. 264. 

The antipapistical antipathies of this Unitarian divine, 
allowed him only to see matter of offence in the term 
Saints, an order of men, as he supposes, first con¬ 
stituted by the superstitious piety of the Roman Catholic 
Church : but surely a moment’s ingenuous speculation on 
the probabilities of circumstances, would discover matter of 
equal incongruity in the idea of the existence of the dis¬ 
tinct orders of bishops and deacons, in a flourishing 
national church, when this epistle was written, ten or 
twelve years before the date of any one of our four gospels, 
arid within the life time of one who was the cotemporary 
of Christ, and the companion of his immediate disciples. 

That church, and all others that couid have had in 
them the distinct orders of bishops and deacons, must 


REFERENCES. 


103 


have been ancient at the time. There could be no bishops 
and deacons among new converts. Such a state of the 
church, at that time, involves a certain demonstration, that 
its doctrine, discipline and government must have been ot 
many years standing, anterior to the Augustan age. 

20. It is a violence to imagination, and costs it a sort 
of painful effort to suppose that St. Paul could have written 
his epistle to the Romans, in the Greek language : We 
could as easily fancy a general address to the inhabitants 
of London, in Arabic. 

21. In the earliest Greco-Latin Codices, the passage, 
Romans xii. 13. 44 Distributing to the necessity of saints .”— Tu>g 
x<>aai? rwv ayio>v xonmvovrTtg —stood “ communicating to the 

memories of the saints.” i. e.— t«i g firttag tuiv ay ion- x. r. /.- 

Of this passage, Michaelis remarks, that it conveys the 
language and sentiments of a later age ; <*yiog, being 
used in the ecclesiastical sense of the word, for saints or 
martyrs , characters unknown at Rome, when St. Paul 
wrote his epistle to the Romans ; and this fault, for a 
fault he conceives it evidently is, could hardly have taken 
place before the end of the second, or the beginning of the 
third century. 

Mosheim describes the festivals and commemorations oj 
the martyrs , being celebrated in the most extravagant 
manner, as characteristic of the depravity of the fourth 
century: and all Protestant ecclesiastics, strain evrery 
nerve to throw the odium of what they esteem corruptions 
of the primitive purity, on later ages. 

“ It is well known, among other things, what oppor¬ 
tunities of sinning were offered to the licentious, by what 
were called the vigils of Easter and Whitsuntide, or Pen¬ 
tecost.” Mosheim —vol. i. p. 398. We find however that this 
religious observation of the vigils of the great festivals, 
especially that of Easter, in commemoration of Christ’s 
resurrection, was observed in a distinguished manner 
among the Therapeutan or Essenians, and as it was an 
annual observance, must have obtained many years before 
the birth of Christ —See the translated chapter from Eusebius , 
verse 41. 

22 . 44 Moreover , brethren , I delivered unto you first of all , 
that which I also received , how that Christ died for our 
sins , according to the Scriptures ; and that he was buried , and 
that he rose again the third day , according to the Scriptures ; 
and that he was seen of Cephas , then of the twelve : after 
that, he was seen of about five hundred brethren at once> oj 


104 


REFERENCES. 


whom the greater part remain unto this present , hut some are 
fallen asleep : after that , he was seen of James, then of all the 
apostles ; and last of all he was seen of me also , as of one born out 
of due time” —i. Corinth xv. 1. 

The writer of this epistle, here refers to higher authority 
than his own, a that , which he also received ,” that is, scrip¬ 
tures, which related that Christ died for our sins ; that ho 
appeared after his resurrection to five hundred brethren 
at once, and in an especial manner, to Cephas,* and in a 
like especial manner, to James. 

1. These circumstances partake largely of the more 
marvellous and exaggerative character of the apocryphal 
gospels. 2. They are certainly not contained in the ca¬ 
nonical ones. 3. And yet are insisted on, as so essential 
to the Christian faith, that unless they were kept in me¬ 
mory, Christians would have believed in vain. 4. No laws 
of evidence would endure the unsupported assumption 
that the witness, Cephas , was the same person as the 
apostle, Peter. 5. Nor were there twelve disciples, after 
Judas, who was one of the number, had hanged himself. 
6. Nor is there the least intimation, in any of our gospels, 
of an especial appearance to Janies. 7. Nor was the 
number of the brethren, at their first meeting, after Christ’s 
ascension from the top of Mount Olivet, more than u about 
an hundred and twenty.”f 8. Nor was there time.—• 
9. Nor was it possible, that the scriptures, which detailed 
the circumstances of Christ’s appearances after his resur¬ 
rection, in this exaggerative style, could have been in any 
way derived from our four gospels, or any of them : they 
not having been written till twelve years after this epistle.f 

That, other scriptures than those which have come 
down to us, telling the Christian story in a different way, 
were the original basis of the Christian faith ; and that 
those other scriptures were in vogue and notoriety, not 
only before our gospels were written, but before the events 
related in our gospels had occurred ; are facts, whose force 
of evidence amounts to the utmost degree of certainty of 
which historical fact is capable. That those scriptures 
were the sacred writings of the Egyptian-Therapeuts de¬ 
scribed by Philo, and so expressly considered by Eusebius, 
is matter of the strongest presumption that can be sup¬ 
posed in the absence of all other grounds of presumption. 

* Acts i. 15. This Cephas was one of the 70, a wholly different personage 
from the Peter of the Gospels : to this assurance, we have the positive assertion 
of Eusebius. 

t See the Table of the Times and Places of Writing, &c. 


REFERENCES. 


105 


23. “ Else what shall they do, ichich are baptized for the 
dead, if the dead rise not at all ? Why are they then baptized 
for the dead?” —1 Cor. xv. 29. 

Here is a reference to some, then well known and es¬ 
tablished religious ceremony, existing in a Christian church ; 
of which ceremony and its significancy, and purport, ne 
trace or vestige has come down to us : nor can our com¬ 
mentators come to any sort of agreement, as to what sense 
should be attached to the words. It is utterly impossible, 
that such a baptism could have come into use, or have ac¬ 
quired such a notoriety, as to make it stand for so general an 
argument, as that of the resurrection of the dead, within the 
term of life of any one who had conversed with St. Peter, 
on whom it hath been pretended, that the Christian church 
is founded. Let the reader, if he can, conceive any other 
way of accounting for the text, than its reference to some an¬ 
cient ceremony of the Egyptian Therapeuts, which, after the 
schismatics and seceders from their communion, had acquired 
the name of Christians, grew gradually into disuse, and so finally 
sunk in oblivion.* 

24. Acts xx. 18. St. Paul addresses the elders of the 

Ephesian church, — U I have been with you at all seasons. 
Ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of 
God;” a style of the most affectionate intimacy. Yet the 
writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians, addresses them as 
a stranger, who had only heard of their faith in the Lord 
Jesus, and love unto all the saints.” (Eph. i. 15.) — 
Query. — Could the Paul, who declared in the one case, 
and the Paul who wrote in the other, be the same indi¬ 

vidual? Query, — Who were all the saints , who were loved 
by the Ephesians, at least twelve years before any one of 
our gospels was written? and consequently as many years 

before there could be any saints whatever, whose faith had been 
founded on those gospels? 

25. “ Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard 
that Antichrist shall come, even now are there many anti¬ 
christs; whereby we know that it is the last time .”—1 John 
ii. 12. 

Here is a full confession of the comparatively modern 
character of this epistle:—1. The time which could be 
spoken of as “ the last,” with relation to Christianity, 
could not but at least have been late, and late enough to 

have given the persons so addressed, time to have heard 

* They joined themselves to Baal-Peor, nnd ate the offerings of the dead.— 
Psalm. The reader is to make what use he pleases of this conjecture. 


106 


REFERENCES. 


of the prophecy that Antichrist should come : and, 2. To 
have had faith in it, and expectation of its accomplish¬ 
ment, beforehand : 3. And if the time when this epistle was 
written (about a. d. 80) was the last of Christianity, 
there can have been no Christianity in the world since 
then : 4. And if then , while St. John was living, Antichrist 
was come, and it was the last time, the Christ whom 
St. John intended to preach, must have been much earlier 
in the world than that time. All which agrees in style 
and manner with the character of an angry Egyptian 
monk, complaining of the corruptions and perveisions 
which his contemporaries had put upon the pure ana 
original Therapeutan doctrines ; but presents not a single 
feature in keeping with the character of one, supposed to 
be himself one of the earliest preachers of an entirely new 
religion, who existed not in the last time, but in the first; 
not after Christianity had run to seed, but before it had 
fully sprung up. u And if Christianity,” says Archbishop 
Wake, “ remained not uncorrupted so long, surely we 
may say, it came up and was cut down like a flower, and 
continued not even so long as the usual term of the life 
of man.” 

26. u I wrote unto the church ; but Diotrephes , who loveth 
to have the pre-eminence among them , receiveth us not. Where¬ 
fore , if I come , I will remember his deeds which he doeth , 
prating against us with malicious words ; and not content there¬ 
with , neither doth he himself receive the friars, and forbid- 
deth them that would , and casteth them out of the church .”— 
3 John 9. 10. 

1. If this John were the disciple of Christ, this text is 
fatal to the claims of St. John’s Gospel, since it shows that 
the rulers of the church had rejected his writings. 2. Its 
reference to the circumstances of mendicant friars, or 
travelling quack-doctors, is as clear as the day. 3. But 
who was this Diotrephes , whose name signifies literally 
the ward or pupil of Jupiter ? Any thing rather than a 
Christian name. 4. And with what conceivable state of 
a Christian community, that could have existed during the 
life-time of one of its first preachers, can we associate 
the idea of such a struggle for pre-eminence ? The phe¬ 
nomena admit of no solution but that which determines 
that these writings are the compositions of no such persons 
as is supposed, and that, however ancient we take them 
to be, they refer to a state of ecclesiastical polity still more 
ancient. 


REFERENCES. 


107 

27. u Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit your- 
selves , for they watch for your souls , as they that must give an 
account” —Heb. xiii. 17. 

28. <£ Remember them that have the rule over you , who have 
spoken unto you the word of God !” —Heb. xiii. 7. 

What have we here, but references to ecclesiastical 
government and spiritual power, already established in all 
its plenitude ? A state of things which could not possibly 
have existed—a sort of language that could not pos¬ 
sibly have been used, in any reference to an authority 
which had originated within the life-time of the persons 
so addressed, or to a word of God , of which the then 
preachers, were the first. 

29. “ For such are false apostles , deceitful workers , trans¬ 
forming themselves into the apostles of Christ; and no marvel , 
for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light .”— 
2 Cor. xi. 13. Aye ! aye ! And with what state of a reli¬ 
gion, whose founder had been crucified, and whose doc¬ 
trines had not yet passed into the hands of a second 
generation, and whose apostles had nothing but spiritual 
blessings to confer on others, and nothing but martyrdom 
to expect for themselves, can we imagine that apostleship 
to be so winning a game, that the Devil himself would 
play it ?* 

THE CONCLUSION 

Is inevitable. We are not, perhaps, entitled certainly to 
pronounce that it was so ; but the hypothesis (if it be no 
more), that Paul and his party were sent out, in the first 
instance, as apostles, or missionaries, from this previously 
existing society of Monks , which had for ages, or any 
length of time before, fabricated and been in possession of 
the allegorical fiction of Jesus Christ, that the Acts of the 
Apostles , with the exception of all their supernatural details , 
are a garbled journal of his'real adventures; and the 
Epistles, with the exception of some improved passages 
and superior sentiments that have been foisted into them, 
are such as he wrote to the various communities in which 
he had established his own independent supremacy, by a 
successful schism from the mother church : this hypothesis 
will solve all the phenomena ; which is what no other will. 

* There are innumerable other passages to the like effect; such as the wild 
man John preaching in the wilderness: A voice crying in the wilderness: 
the miraculous fasting of the old woman Anna: the pass-word of the vigilant 
monks, Watch and pray ! &c. &c. whose further tractation would detain me 
too long from worthier matter. Let the reader glance his eye over the New Tes¬ 
tament with this observance. 


108 


PRELIMINARY. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

ON THE CLAIMS OF THE SCRIPTURES OF THE NEW 
TESTAMENT TO BE CONSIDERED AS GENUINE AND 
AUTHENTIC. 


PRELIMINARY. 

There is no greater nor grosser delusion perhaps in the 
world, than that of the common sophistry of arguing for 
the genuineness and authenticity of the writings of the 
New Testament, upon the ridiculous supposition, that the 
state of things of which we are witnesses, with respect 
to these writings in our times, is the same, or much like 
what it was, in the primitive ages ; that is, that these 
writings were generally in the hands of professing Chris¬ 
tians, were distinguished as pre-eminently sacred, had 
their authority universally acknowledged, or were so ex¬ 
tensively diffused, that material alterations in them from 
time to time, could not have been effected without certain 
discovery, and as certain reprobation of so sacrilegious an 
attempt. 

The very reverse of such an imaginary resemblance of 
past to present circumstances, is the truth of history, as 
borne out by the admissions of all who have devoted 
their time and labours to the investigation of ecclesiastical 
antiquity. 

The learned Dr. Lardner is constrained to admit, that 
“ even so late as the middle of the sixth century, the canon 
of the New Testament had not been settled by any 
authority that was decisive and universally acknowledged ; 
but Christian people were at liberty to judge for them¬ 
selves concerning the genuineness of writings proposed to 
them as apostolical, and to determine according to evi¬ 
dence.”—Vol. 3, pp. 54—61. 

We have shown also, that the scriptures were not 
entrusted to the hands of the laity. The mystical sense 
which we find by the very earliest Fathers to have been 
attached to them, is the strongest corroboration of those 
positive testimonies which we have, that the Christian 
people were kept in the profoundest ignorance of the 
contents of the sacred volume. The clergy only, were 



PRELIMINARY. 


109 

held to be the fit depositaries of those mystical legends, 
which in the hands of the common people, were so liable 
to be “ wrested to their own destruction.” Not to insist 
on the deplorable ignorance of lay-people all over Chris¬ 
tendom for so many ages, during which, scarce any but 
the clergy were able to read at all. 

It would be hard to authenticate a single instance of 
the existence of a translation of the gospels into the vulgar 
tongue, of any country in which Christianity was estab¬ 
lished, at any time within the first four centuries. 

The clergy, or those engaged and interested in the 
business of dealing out spiritual edification, whose testi¬ 
mony alone we have on the subject, mutually criminate 
and recriminate each other, according as they grasp or 
lose their hold on the ascendancy, (and so are held to be 
orthodox or heretical) with corrupting the scriptures. 

The epistolary parts of the New Testament, entirely 
independent and wholly irrelevant of the gospels as they 
manifestly are, may be considered as the fairest and most 
liberal specimen of the manner, in which the stewards of 
the mysteries of God, “ brought forth things new and old”* 
according to the spiritual necessities of the congregations 
which they addressed, while they steadily kept the key of 
the sacred treasure, the right of expounding it, and even 
of determining ^hat it was, exclusively in their own hands. 
Hence, though the gospel is spoken of in innumerable 
passages of these epistles, (written, as we have seen they 
were, before any gospels which have come down to us, 
except those which are deemed apocryphal,) there occurs 
not in them, a single quotation or text seeming to be taken 
from the gospel so spoken of, or sufficient to show what 
the contents of that gospel, were. 

Hence the authenticity and genuineness of the writings 
of St. Paul, and of all those parts of the narrative of the 
Acts of the Apostles, which Paley in his Horoe Paulinai 
has shown, present such striking coincidences with his 
writings, is a wholly distinct and irrelevant question, to 
that of the genuineness and authenticity of the writings on 
which the Christian faith is founded : for, as all persons 
must see and admit at once, that if the four gospels of 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which have come down 
to us, could be shown to be the compositions of such 

* Every Scribe instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, is like unto a man that 
is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure, things new and old.— 
Matt, xiii 52.— i. e. he practices the art of deceiving the people. 

11 


110 


PRELIMINARY. 


persons, as those to whom, under those names, they are 
ascribed, and so to be fairly and honourably genuine and 
authentic— this, their high and independent sanction, would 
lose nothing, nor even so much as to be brought into 
suspicion, by a detection of the most manifest forgery ^hd 
imposture of those subordinate, or, at most, only 
supplementary writings : so the genuineness of these 
supplementary writings, involves no presumption of the 
genuineness or authenticity of those ; but rather, as being 
admitted to have been written earlier than our gospels, 
and referring continually to gospels still earlier than 
themselves, which had previously been the rule of faith 
to so many previously existing churches ; these epistles 
supply one of the most formidable arrays of proof that 
can possibly be imagined against the claims of our gospels ; 
and having served this effect, like expended ammunition 
that has carried the volley to its aim, they dissipate and 
break off into the void and incollectible inane. The gos¬ 
pels once convicted of being merely supposititious 
and furtive compositions, it is not the genuineness and 
demonstrable authenticity of any other parts of the New 
Testament, that its advocates will care to defend, or its 
enemies to impugn. They fall as a matter of course, like 
the provincial towns and fortresses of a conquered empire, 
to the masters of the capital. 

In this Diegesis, we shall therefore more especially 
confine our investigation to the claims of the Evangelical 
histories ; and as our arguments must mainly be derived 
from the admissions which their best learned and ablest 
advocates have made with respect to them, we shall 
throughout, speak of them and of their contents, in the 
tone and language which courtesy and respect to the 
feelings of those for whose instruction we write, may 
reasonably claim from us ; and which being understood as 
adopted for the convenience of argument only, can involve 
no compromise of sincerity. # 


CANONS OF CRITICISM. 


Ill 


CHAPTER XIV. 

CANONS OF CRITICISM.-DATA OF CRITICISM.-COROLLA* 

RIE8.-DR. LARDNER’S TABLE. 


CANONS OF CRITICISM. 

To be applied in judging the comparative claims of the 
«Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels. 

1. The canonical and apocryphal gospels are competi¬ 
tive, i.e. they are reciprocally destructive of each other’s 

pretensions. 

2. If the canonical gospels are authentic, the apocry¬ 
phal gospels are forgeries. 

3. If the apocryphal gospels are authentic, the canonical 
gospels are forgeries. 

4. No consideration of the comparative merits or cha¬ 
racters of the competitive works, can have place in the 
consideration of their claims to authenticity. 

5. Those writings, which ever they be, or whether they 
be the better or the worse, which can be shown “to have 
been written first , have the superior claim to authenticity. 

6. It is impossible that those writings which were the 
first, could have been written to disparage or supersede 
those which were written after. 

7. Those writings which have the less appearance of 
art and contrivance, are the first. 

8. Those writings which exhibit a more rhetorical con¬ 
struction of language, in the detail of the same events, 
with explications, suppressions, and variations, whose 
evident scope is, to render the story more probable, are 
the later writings. 

9. Those writings whose existence is acknowledged by 
the others, but which themselves acknowledge not those 
others, are unquestionably the first. 

10. There could be no conceivable object or purpose in 
putting forth writings which were much worse, after the 
world were in possession of such as were much better. 

11. If the story were not true, in the first way of telling 
it, no improvement in the way of telling it, could render it 
true. 

12. If those, who were only improvers upon the original 
history, have concealed that fact, and have suffered man¬ 
kind to understand that the improvements were the originals , 



112 


COROLLARIES. 


they are guilty and wicked forgers, and never could have 
had any other or better intention, than to mislead and de¬ 
ceive mankind. 


DATA OF CRITICISM. 

To be applied in judging the comparative claims of the 
Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels. 

1. It is manifest and admitted on all hands, that the 
apocryphal gospels are very silly and artless compositions, 
“ full of pious frauds and fabulous wonders.”— Mosheim , 
in loco. 

2. It is manifest, and admitted on all hands, that the 
canonical gospels exhibit a more rhetorical construction 
of language than the apocryphal, and have a highly-wrought 
sublimity and grandeur, the like of which is no where to 
be found in any of the apocryphal gospels. 

3. The canonical gospels, but more especially the 
canonical epistles, which are admitted to have been 
written before the gospels, do in very many places acknow¬ 
ledge the existence and prevalence of those writings which 
are now called apocryphal. 

4. The apocryphal gospels, as far as we have any traces 
of them left, do no where recognise or acknowledge the 
writings which are now called canonical. 

5. The apocryphal gospels, are quoted by the very 
earliest Fathers, orthodox, as well as heretical, as rever¬ 
entially as those which we now call canonical. 

6. The apocryphal gospels, are admitted in the New 
Testament itself, to have been universally received, and 
to have been the guide and rule of faith to the whole 
Christian world, before any one of our present canonical 
gospels, was in existence. 


COROLLARIES. 

1. Indications of time, discovered in those gospels 
which were written first, will indicate time relatively , to 
those which were written afterwards —exempli gratia. It 
being proved that the legend A. was written before the 
legend C, there will be proof, that events which were con¬ 
temporary or antecedent to the writing of A., were ante¬ 
cedent, a fortiori , to the writing of C. 

2. Indications of the prevalence of a state of things, 
existing when the earlier gospels were written, will 
indicate relatively the state of things, when the latter 




DR. LARDNER'S TABLE. 113 

gospels were written— exempli gratia. It being proved 
that the earlier gospels were written under an universal 
prevalence of the notions and doctrines of monkery, there 
will be proof of the monkish character necessarily derived 
to the gospels, derived from those gospels. 


DR. LARDNER’s TABLE. 

Dr. LardneFs Plan of the Times and Places of writing the Four 
Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. 

(Supplement to The Credibility, &c. vol. i. pL iv.) 


Gospels. 

St. Matthew’s. 

St. Mark’s. 

St. Luke’s. 

St. John’s. 

The Acts of the Apostles. 


Places. 

Judea, or near it. 
Rome. 

Greece. 

Ephesus. 

Greece. 


A. D. 
About 64 
64 

63 or 64 
68 

63 or 64 


A Table of St. PauVs Epistles in the Order of Time ; with the Places 
where , and the Times when , they were written. 

(From Lardner’s Supplement to The Credibility, &c. vol. ii. p. iv.) 


Epistles. Places. 

1 Thessalonians. Corinth. 

2 Thessalonians. Corinth. 


A D. 

52 

52 


Galatians. 

1 Corinthians. 

1 Timothy. 
Titus. 

2 Corinthians. 
Romans. 
Ephesians. 

2 Timothy. 
Philippians. 
Colossians. 
Philemon. 
Hebrews. 


Corinth or Ephesus. 

Ephesus. 

Macedonia. 
Macedonia, or near it. 
Macedonia. 

Corinth. 

Rome. 

Rome. 

Rome. 

Rome. 

Rome. 

Rome or Italy. 


Near the end of 52 
or the beginning of 53 
The beginning of 56 
56 

Before the end of 56 
About October 57 
About February 58 
About April 61 
About May 61 
Before the end of 62 
Before the end of 62 
Before the end of 62 
In the spring of 63 


A Table of the Seven Catholic Epistles , and the Revelation , with 
the Places where , and the Times when , they were written. 

(From Lardner’s Supplement to The Credibility, &c. vol. iii. p. iv ) 


Epistles , Sfc. 

The Epistles of St. James. 
The two Epistles of St. Peter. 
St. John’s first Epistle. 

His second and third Epistles. 
The Epistle of St. Jude. 

The Revelation of St. John. 

11 st 


Places. A D. 

Judea. 61, or the beginning of 62 
Rome. 64 

Ephesus. About 80 

Ephesus. Between 89 and 90 
Unknown. 64 or 65 

Patmos or Ephesus. 95 or 96 





114 


OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GENERAL. 


CHAPTER XV. 

OF THE FOUR GOSPELS, IN GENERAL. 

The ordinary notion, that the four gospels were written 
by the persons whose names they bear, and that they have 
descended to us from original autographs of Matthew and 
John, immediate disciples, and of Mark and Luke, cotem¬ 
poraries and companions of Christ ; in like manner as the 
writings of still more early poets and historians have des¬ 
cended to us, from the pens of the authors to whom they 
are attributed, is altogether untenable. It has been 
entirely surrendered by the most able and ingenuous 
Christian writers, and will no longer be maintained by any 
but those whose zeal outruns their knowledge, and whose 
recklessness and temerity of assertion, can serve only to 
dishonour and betray the cause they so injudiciously seek 
to defend. 

The surrender of a position which the world has for 
ages been led to consider impregnable, by the admission 
of all that the early objection of the learned Christian 
Bishop, Faustus, the Manichean, implied, when he 
pressed Augustine with that bold challenge which Augus¬ 
tine was unable to answer, that,* “ It is certain that 
the New Testament was not written by Christ himself, nor 
by his apostles, but a long while after them, by some un¬ 
known persons, who lest they should not be credited when 
they wrote of affairs they were little acquainted with, 
affixed to their works the names of apostles, or of such as 
were supposed to have been their companions, asserting 
that what they had written themselves, was written 
according to those persons to whom they ascribed it.” 

This admission has not been held to be fatal to the 
claims of divine relation, nor was it held to be so even by 
the learned Father himself who so strenuously insisted on 
it, since he declares his own unshaken faith in Christ’s 
mystical crucifixion, notwithstanding. 

* Nec ab ipso scriptum constat, nec ab ejus apostolis sed longo post tempore a 
qmbusdarn incerti nominis viris, qui ne sibi non habei;etur fides scribentibus quae 
nescirent, partial apostolorum, partim eorum qui apostolos secuti viderentur 
nomina scriptorum suorum frontibus indiderunt, asseverantes secundum eos f 
se scripsisse quae scripserunt .—Quoted by Lardner , vol. 2, p. 221 .—See Chap¬ 
ter 7, p. 66, of this Diegesis. 


OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GENERAL. 115 

Adroitly handled as the passage has been by the in 
genuity of theologians, it has been made rather to subserve 
the cause of the evidences of the Christian religion, than 
to injure it. Since though it be admitted, that the Chris¬ 
tian world has a all along been under a delusion ” in this 
respect, and has held these writings to be of higher 
authority than they really are ; yet the writings themselves 
and their authors, are innocent of having contributed to 
that delusion, and never bore on them, nor in them, any 
challenge to so high authority as the mistaken piety of 
Christians has ascribed to them, but did all along profess 
no more than to have been written, as Faustus testifies, 
not by, but according to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and 
John ; and by persons of whom indeed it is not known 
who nor what they were, nor was it of any consequence 
that it should be, after the general acquiescence of the 
church had established the sufficient correctness of the 
compilations they had made. 

And here the longo post tempore , (the great while after ,) 
is a favourable presumption of the sufficient opportunity 
that all persons* had, of knowing and being satisfied, that 
the gospels which the church received, were indeed all 
that they purported to be ; that is, faithful narrations of 
the life and doctrines of Christ, according to what could be 
collected from the verbal accounts which his apostles had 
given, or by tradition been supposed to have given, and as 
such, u worthy of all acceptation .” 

While the objection of Faustus, becomes from its own 
nature the most indubitable and inexceptionable evidence, 
carrying us up to the very early age, the fourth century, 
in which he wrote, with a demonstration, that the gospels 
were then universally known and received, under the pre¬ 
cise designation, and none other, than that with which 
they have come down to us, even as the gospels respect¬ 
ively, according to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. 

Of course there can be no occasion to pursue the inquiry 
into the authenticity of the Christian scriptures, lower 
down than the fourth century. 

1. Though , in that age, there was no established canon 
or authoritative declaration, that such and none other, 


* By all persons, understanding strictly all parsons , for the common people 
were nobody, and never at any time had any voice, judgment, or option, in the 
business of religion, but always believed, that which their godfathers and godmo¬ 
thers did promise and vow that they should believe. God or devil, and any scrip¬ 
tures their masters pleased, were alwavs all one to them 


116 OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GENERAL. 

than those which have ojme down to us, were the books 
which contained the Christian rule of faith. 

2. And though u no manuscript of these writings now 
in existence is prior to the sixth century, and various 
readings which, as appears from the quotations of the 
Fathers, were in the text of the Greek Testament, are to 
be found in none of the manuscripts which are at present 
remaining.”— Michaelis , vol. 2, p. 160. 

3. And though many passages which are now found in 
these scriptures were not contained in any ancient copies 
whatever ; 

4. And though “ in our common editions of the Greek 
Testament, are many readings, which exist not in a single 
manuscript, but are founded on mere conjecture.”— 
Marsh's Michaelis , vol 2, p. 496. 

5. And though “ it is notorious, that the orthodox 
charge the heretics with corrupting the text, and that the 
heretics recriminate upon the orthodox.”— Unitarian Mew 
Version , p. 121. 

6. And though “it is an undoubted fact, that the here¬ 
tics were in the right in many points of criticism, where 
the Fathers accused them of wilful corruption.”— Bp. 
Marsh , vol 2, p. 362. 

7. And though “ it is notorious, that forged writings 
under the names of the Apostles were in circulation 
almost from the apostolic age.”—See 2 Thess. ii. 2, quoted 
in Unitarian Mew Version .* 

8. And though “ not long after Christ’s ascension into 
heaven, several histories of his life and doctrines, full of 
pious frauds and fabulous wonders, were composed by 
persons whose intentions, perhaps, were not bad, but 
whose writings discovered the greatest superstition and 
ignorance.”— Mosheim , vol. 1, p. 109. 

9. And though, says the great Scaliger, “ They put into 
their scriptures whatever they thought would serve their 
purpose.”f 

10. And though “ notwithstanding those twelve known 
infallible and faithful judges of controversy (the twelve 
Apostles), there were as many and as damnable heresies 
crept in, even in the apostolic age, as in any other age, 

* “ Almost from the apostolic age !” Why the text itself, if it prove any 
thing, proves that such forged writings were in existence absolutely in the 
apostolic age, and among the apostles themselves. 

+ Omnia quae Christianismo conducere putabant bibliis sms mterseruerunt. 
—Tindalio citante. 


OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GENERAL. 117 

perhaps, during the same space of time.”— Reeve's Preli¬ 
minary Discourse to the Cominonitory of Vincentius Lirinen- 
sis, p. 190. 

11. And though there were in the manuscripts of the 
New Testament, at the time of editing the last printed 
copies of the Greek text, upwards of one hundred and 
thirty thousand various readings.”— Unitarian New Ver¬ 
sion, p. 22. 

12. And though u the confusion unavoidable in Inese 
versions (the ancient Latin, from which all our European 
versions are derived), had arisen to such a height, that 
St. Jerome, in his Preface to the Gospels, complains that 
no one copy resembled another.”— Michaelis , vol. 2. p. 119. 

13. And though the gospels fatally contradict each 
other ; that is, in several important particulars, they do so 
to such an extent, as no ingenuity of supposition has yet 
been able to reconcile : only the most stupid and ignorant 
of Methodist parsons, and canting, arrogant fanatics, any 
longer attempting to reconcile them, after Marsh, Micha¬ 
elis, and the most learned critics, have struck, and owned 
the conquest.* 

14. And though the difference of character between the 
three first gospels, and that ascribed to St. John, is so 
flagrantly egregious, that the most learned Christian di¬ 
vines, and profoundest scholars, have frankly avowed that 
the Jesus Christ of St. John, is a wholly different character 
from the Jesus Christ of Matthew, Mark, and Luke ; and 
that their account and his should both be true, is flatly 
impossible, f 

15. And though such was the idolatrous adulation paid 
to the authority of Origeri, that emendations of the text 
which were but suggested by him, were taken in as part 
of the New Testament ; though he himself acknowledged 
that they were supported by the authority of no manu¬ 
script whatever.— Marsh , in loco. 

16. And though, even so late as the period of the 
Reformation, we have whole passages which have been 
thrust into the text, and thrust out, just as it served the 
turn which the Protestant tricksters had to serve. 


* See Bishop Marsh’s Surrender, quoted m chapter 17. 

t Si forte accidisset, ut Johannis Evangelium per octodecirn secula priora 
prorsus ignotum jacuisset, et nostris dernuin temporibus, in medium productuin 
esset omnes haud dubie uno ore confiterentur Jesum a Johanne descriptum longo 
alium esse ac illiurn Matthsei, Marci, et Lucre, nec utrarnque descriptionem simul 
weram esse posse.— Carol . Theoph. Bretschneider Probab. Lipsite, 1820 


118 OF THE FOUR GOSPELS IN GENERAL. 

17. And though we have on record the most indubitably 
historical evidence, of a general censure and correction 
of the Gospels having been made at Constantinople, in 
the year 506, by order of the emperor Anastasius.* 

18. And though we have like unquestionable historical 
evidence, of measureless and inappreciable alterations of 
the same, having been made by our own Lanfranc, Arch¬ 
bishop of Canterbury, for the avowed purpose of accom¬ 
modating them to the faith of the orthodox, f 

19. And though there are other passages retained and 
circulated as part of the word of God, which are known 
and admitted by all parties to be wilful interpolations, 
and downright forgery and falsehood. 

20. And though we see with our own eyes, and witness 
in our own experience—as per example, in the Athanasian 
Creed—that nothing could be so absurd, so false, so wick¬ 
ed, but that it would be retained and supported by our 
Christian clergy, on the selfsame principle as that on 
which they support all the rest on’t,—even because it sup¬ 
ports them! 

Yet, after all, we shall find thousands of interested and 
aspiring pedants, pretending to reconcile what cannot be 
reconciled, to prove what cannot be proved, and to show 
that to be true, which every sense and faculty of man 
attests and demonstrates to be false. It is, however, on 
the ground of inspiration , that they ultimately rest their 
pretensions : it was on that ground that the Tower of Ba¬ 
bel was built ; that we leave them ; but on the ground of 
history, criticism, reason, and natural evidence, they have 
no rest for the sole of their foot. I recommend them to 
treat us with contempt, and to send us to Coventry, and 
not to Oakham. 

* Here it is. “ Messala V. C. consule, Constantinopoli, jubente Anastasio 
Imperatore, sancta evangelic, tanquam ab idiotis evangelistis composita, 
reprehenduntur et emendantqr.”— Victor Tununensis , Cave’s Historia Lite - 
raria , vol. 1. p. 415—i. e. “ The illustrious Messala being Consul; by the 
command of the Emperor Anastasius , the holy Gospels, as having been 
written by idiot evangelists, are censured and corrected .”—Victor, Bishop 
bf Tunis in Africa. 

t See Beausobre, quoted in the Manifesto of the Christian Evidence Society ; 
and this, and the preceding extract vindicated, in the author’s Syntagma, against 
the vituperations of the evangelical Dr. John Pye Smith, in locis 


ORIGIN OF THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS. 


119 


CHAPTER XVI. 


ON THE ORIGIN OF OUR THREE FIRST CANONICAL 
GOSPELS. 


That our three first canonical gospels have a remarkable 
similarity to each other ; and that the three first evan¬ 
gelists (sc. Matthew, Mark, and Luke) frequently agree, 
not only in relating the same things in the same manner, 
but likewise in the same words, is a fact of which every 
one must be convinced who has read a Greek Harmony 
of the Gospels. In some cases, all the Evangelists agree 
word for word, as thus : 


Matthew, xxiv. 33. 

Now learn a parable 
of the fig tree ; when his 
branch is yet tender, and, 
putteth forth leaves, ye 
know that summer is\ 
nigh : so likewise, ye, 
when ye shall see all 
these things, know that! 
it is near, even at the 
doors. Verily, I say unto' 
you, this generation shall 
not pass, till all these 
things be fulfilled. Hea-j 
ven and earth shall pass 
away, but my words shall 
not pass away. 


Mark, xiii. 20. 

Now learn a parable 
of the fig-tree ; when her 
branch is yet tender, and 
putteth forth leaves, ye 
know that summer is 
near : so ye, in like man¬ 
ner, when ye shall see 
these things come to 
pass, know that it is 
nigh, even at the doors. 
Verily, I say unto you, 
that this generation shall 
not pass, till all these 
things be done. Heaven 
and earth shall pass away, 
but my words shall not 
pass away. 


Luke, xxi. 31. 

Behold the fig-tree, 
and all the trees ; when 
they now shoot forth, ye 
see and know of your 
ownselves, that summer 
is now nigh at hand : so 
likewise, ye, when ye 
see these things come to 
pass, know ye that the 
kingdom of God is nigh 
at hand. Verily, I say 
unto you, this genera¬ 
tion shall not pass away, 
till all be fulfilled. Hea¬ 
ven and earth shall pass 
away, but my words shall 
not pass away. 


These phenomena are inexplicable on any other than 
one of the two following suppositions, either that St. Mat¬ 
thew, St. Mark, and Saint Luke, copied from each other, 
or that all three drew from a common source. 

In Mark xiii. 13 to 32, there is such a close verbal agree¬ 
ment, for twenty verses together, with the parallel pas¬ 
sage in St. Matthew’s gospel, that the texts of St. Matthew 
and St. Mark might pass for one and the same text. 

“ The most eminent critics are at present decidedly 'A 
opinion that one of the two suppositions must necessarily 
be adopted—either that the three evangelists copied from 
each other, or that all the three drew from a common 
source , and that the notion of an absolute independence, 
in respect to the composition of our three first gospels, is 
no longer tenable. Yet the question, which of these two 





120 ORIGIN OF THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS. 

suppositions ought to be adopted in preference to the other, 
is still in agitation ; and each of them has such able advo¬ 
cates, that if we were guided by the authority of names, 
the decision would be extremely difficult.”* 

Difficult as the decision may be ; to the great end of this 
general view of the evidence affecting the claims of divine 
revelation, it is utterly indifferent ; since either alternative 
affords results equally conclusive, and equally militant 
against the character of those through whose hands these 
writings have come down to us. In either alternative, 
they are not original writings; they are not what they pur¬ 
port to be ; and the writers stand convicted, at least, of 
negative imposture, (if indeed the imposture is attribu¬ 
table to them,) in passing their compositions off as origi¬ 
nal, and attempting to conceal from us the help they 
borrowed from each other, or what the common source 
was from which they each of them drew. 

Le Clerc, in his Historia Critica, published at Amster¬ 
dam, a. d. 1716, seems to have been the first among 
modern divines who ventured to put forth the startling 
supposition that these three gospels were in part derived 
from either similar or the self-same sources.f 

This opinion lay dormant upwards of sixty years, till it 
was revived by Michaelis, in the third edition of his Intro¬ 
duction, published 1777. Dr. Semler, however, was the 
first writer who made it known to the public that our three 
first evangelists used in common a Hebrew or Syriac 
document or documents, from which they derived the 
principal materials of their history ; in a treatise published 
at Halle, in 1783 ; but he has delivered it only in a cur¬ 
sory manner ; and as the thought was then new, he does 
not appear to have had any very determinate opinion on 
the subject. The probability is, that he dared not at that 
time have ventured to put forth a determinate opinion on 
the subject. We find Bishop Marsh himself, even in this 
learned dissertation, the highest authority I could adduce 
on the subject, confessing “ that the easiest and the most 
prudent part that he could take, would be merely to relate 
the opinions of others, without hazarding an opinion of his 
own.” There was little fear that so high a dignitary of 
the church would, for any opinion he might hazard, be 
liable to be dealt with as an humbler heretic of his com- 

* Bishop Marsh’s Michaelis, vol. 3, part 2, p. 170. 

f Quidni credamus tria haec evangelia partial petita esse ex simihbus, aut iisdeno 
fontibus .—Le Clerc, Hist. Crit. in loco 


ORIGIN OF THE THREE FIRST GOSPELS. 121 

munion. The episcopal palace of Peterborough is far 
enough from Oakham Gaol ; yet, for all that, a bishop 
will never be found wanting of the virtue of prudence. 

The express declaration of Eusebius, that the Thera- 
peutse described by Philo were Christians, and that their 
sacred scriptures were our Gospels, after having lain 
dormant for fourteen hundred years, now at length rises, 
upon the admissions of these learned divines, into the 
dimensions of its real importance. From these sacred 
legends, of a sect so long anterier to the epocha assigned 
to Christ and his apostles, our Christian scriptures have 
been plagiarised; and the first position of the Manifesto 
of the Christian Evidence Society, for the public main¬ 
tenance of which the author of this Diegesis endures the 
fate of felony and crime, is nothing more than had in 
other words been previously published, by the learned 
bishop in whose diocese he is a prisoner. 

“ Committunt eadern diverso crimina fato 

Me crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hie diadema/’* 

Eusebius, however, is not alone, even among the ancients, 
in betraying the fact of this great plagiarism. Hints 
and inuendoes occur in a thousand places, pointing out 
the same fact, to those who were entitled by learning and 
office to be intrusted with what Origen significantly calls 
the Arcana Imperii, or secrets of the management; while, 
as the custody of the sacred books was never committed 
to the people, and they were expressly forbidden to exa¬ 
mine into the foundations of their faith, nothing was more 
facile, nothing more practicable, than for the heads and 
rulers of the church to modify and adopt those previously 
existing romances, whose effect in subduing the reason of 
mankind had been found by long experience, and which 
were too ancient to be found out, too sacred to be sus¬ 
pected, and too mysterious to be understood. 

Epiphanius, as long ago as the fourth century, speak¬ 
ing of the verbal harmony of the gospels, which he calls 
their preaching harmoniously and alike f accounts for it by 
saying, that they were drawn from the same fountain 
though he has not explained what he meant by the same 
fountain. 


* “ They commit the same things with a different fate : one hath borne die 
mitre as the price of his exploit—the other, the cross, 
t — vpipwroK xcu Mfvig xi^vcai. —Hseres 51. 6. 
f On eg avnjg rtjs nyytj? owinjirut. 

n 


122 


niemeyer’s hypothesis. 


lessing’s hypothesis. 

But it was in the year 1784, in the posthumous works of 
Lessing , published at Berlin, that the hypothesis of a com¬ 
mon Syriac or Chaldee origin was decidedly maintained, 
and put forth to the world with much more precision than 
the fortitude of Sender had ventured. Lessing was dead 
first. It is not from living authors, or from those who 
wish to live, that the world has to look for important 
discoveries in theology. Those who offer truth to the 
Christian community, must ever provide for their escape 
from the consequences of doing so. 


niemeyer’s hypothesis. 

Six years afterwards (in 1790), the important truth was 
taken up, and allowed to be spoken, in consequence of 
meeting the approbation of Dr. Niemeyer, Professor of 
Divinity in Halle, who, in his Conjectures in illustration 
of the Silence of most of the Writers of the New Testament , 
concerning the beginning of the Life of Jesus Christ, says, 
that “ If credit be due to the authority of the Fathers, 
there existed a most ancient narration of the life of Jesus 
Christ, written especially for those inhabitants of Palestine 
who became Christians from among the Jews.”*—“ This 
narrative is distinguished by various names, as the Gos¬ 
pel of the Twelve Apostles —the Gospel of the Hebrews — the 
Gospel according to JHattheio—the Gospel of the Naza - 
renes ; and this same, unless all things deceive me, is to 
be considered as the fountain from which other writings 
of this sort have derived their origin, as streams from the 
spring.”! 

Dr. Niemeyer further adds, in a passage to which 
Bishop Marsh invokes our especial attention, that 
J “ Since this book of which we speak contained the 

* Jam si fides habenda est patrum auctoritate antiquissirna extitit de vita Jesu 
Christi narratio, in usum eorum, qui e Judaeis Christiani facti erant, Palsestinen- 
sium imprimis scripta. 

f Hsec narratio varus nominibas insignitur, quo pertinent Evangelium duodecitn 
Apostolorum, Hebraeorurn, Nazaraeorum, secundum Matthreum : eadcmque, nisi 
me omnia fallunt, pro fonte habenda est, e quo reliqua id genus scripta tan- 
quam rivuli originem suam duxerunt. 

| Cum vero contineret hie liber, de quo quaerimus Apostolorum de vita Christi 
narrationes, non modo propter argumenti gravitatern credibile est, ejus exemplaria 
in plurimorum christianorum manibus fuisse, quorum maxime debabat interesse 
divinam magistri sui imaginem intueri, verum etiam singulis exerriplaribus ea, 
quae quisque aliunde de Christo comperta haberet, tanquam auctaria adscripta 
esse : ita quidem ut vel Apostolorum asvo, plures extiterunt horum memorabilium 
recensiones. 

Quod si sumitur ; multa faeillime explicari possur.t, quae, sublata ista hypo- 



niemeyer’s hypothesis. 


123 


narrations of the apostles concerning the life of Christ, 
not only is it credible from the importance of its argu¬ 
ment, that copies of it should have been in the hands of 
the generality of Christians, whom it ought chielly to have 
concerned to behold the divine image of their master, but 
that in each particular copy, would be written as a sort 
of supplement, whatever any one had found to be true 
concerning Christ from other sources : so that indeed, 
even in the age of the apostles, there might have been 
several selections of these memoirs : which if it be ad¬ 
mitted ; many things can be most easily explained, which 
otherwise render the origin of our gospels very obscure. In 
the first place, the clear agreement of Matthew, Mark, and 
Luke, in many parts of their gospels, not* only in the re¬ 
semblance of the subjects of which they treat, but in the 
use of the same words , is understood. Make a hundred 
men to have been witnesses of the same fact; make the 
same hundred to have written accounts of what they saw ; 
they will agree in matter, they will differ in words :—nor 
will any one say that it happened by accident, if even 
three or four out of their number, had so related the story, 
as to answer word for word, through a course of many 
periods. 

“ But who is ignorant, that such an agreement is to be 
observed repeatedly in the commentaries of the Evange¬ 
lists ? But this is not wonderful : since they drew from the 
same fountain. They translated the memorable sayings and 
actions of Christ, which were written in Hebrew, into 
Greek, for the use of those who spoke the Greek language. 
But, how came it that Luke should follow a different 

thesi, admodum obscuras reddunt evangeliorum nostrorurn origines. Primurn 
intelligitur consensus Matthsei, Marci, Lucae, per plures evangeliorum suorum 
partes, non rnodo in rerum quas tractunt similitudine, verurn etiarn verborum 
conspiratione perspicuus : Fac centum homines ejusdem facti fuisse testes ; Fac 
centum ipsos quod viderint rnandasse literis : Consentient re, different verbis : 
nec quisquam casu factum esse judicabit, si vel tres aut quatuor ex eorum numero 
rem ita narraveiint, ut per plurimarum periodorum seriern, verbum verbo res¬ 
pondeat. Hoc vero quis ignorat sexcenties observari in evangelistarum com- 
rnentariis ? Atqui hoc mirum non est. JVempe ex eodem hauserunt fonte. 
Memorabilia Christi et dicta et facta Hebraice scripta, in usum Grsece loquentium, 
Graeca fecerunt. 

Q.ui vero factum est, ut Lucas alium sequeretur rerum ordinem, quam Mat¬ 
thaus ; ut in Marco plura desiderentur, in Matthseo, cujus vestigia prcmere 
videtur obvia ? Ut in singulis partibus, alter altero verbosior, in observandis 
rebus minutis, diligentior reperiatur ? Quoniam, ut diximus, mira fuit exempla- 
rium, quae ista Apostolorum. y/noprevpura complectebantur diversitas. 
Deinde, quoniam liberum fuit iis, qui ex istis Commentariis sua evangelia con 
cinnabant* addere quae sibi aliunde innotuissent, resecare quae vel sublestae fidei, vel 
minus utilia lectoribus, et a suo scribendi consilio remota judicarent 


124 


eichhorn’s hypothesis. 


arrangement from Matthew ? That many things should bo 
wanting in Mark, that are readily to be met with in Mat¬ 
thew, whose steps he seems to follow ? That in particular 
parts, one should be found more wordy than the other ; 
in observing minute circumstances more diligent ?—Why ! 
Because as we have said, there really was a wonderful 
diversity in the copies which contained those memoirs of 
the apostles : and, secondly, because it was optionable 
for those who composed their gospels, out of those com¬ 
mentaries, to add whatever they knew of the matter from 
other sources, and to cut off whatever they considered to he 
of equivocal credibility, or less useful to readers and aliene 
from their object in writing.” 


THE QUESTION PROPOSED IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTIN¬ 
GEN, A. D. 1793. 

In 1793, the theological faculty at Gottingen, proposed 
for the prize dissertation the question ; —What was the ori¬ 
gin of the Gospels of Matthew , Mark , Luke , and John ? From 
what fountains did the authors of those gospels draw ? For 
what readers in particular , and with what aim did they each 
iorite y and how , and at what time came it to pass , that those four 
gospels acquired a greater authority , than that of the gospels 
which are called apocryphal; and became canonical .” The 
prize was adjudged to Mr. Halfeld, who maintained that 
the Evangelists extracted their gospels from different 
documents. For proposing a similar question in London, 
in the year 1828, the author of this Diegesis obtained the 
prize, of a year’s imprisonment, in Oakham Gaol, in the 
County of Rutland. 


DR. EICHHORN’S HYPOTHESIS. 

In his dissertation, On the Origin of our Three First 
Gospels , printed in 1794, in the fifth volume of his Universal 
Library, of Biblical Literature,* by far the most important 
of all the Essays which have appeared on this subject, 
Dr. Eichhorn, supposes that only one document was used, 
by all three Evangelists, but he supposes that various 
additions, had been made in various copies of it, and that 
three different copies, thus variously enriched, were res¬ 
pectively used by our three first Evangelists, independently 

* The German title is Allgemeine Bibliothek der Biblischen Literatur ; a peri 
odical publication 




125 


beausobre’s hypothesis. 

of each other. According to Eichhorn’s hypotnesis, the 
proprietors of different copies of this document, added in 
the margin, those circumstances, which had come to their 
knowledge, but which were unnoticed by the author or 
authors of the documents ; and these marginal additions 
were taken by subsequent transcribers into the text. 

Eichhorn is decidedly of opinion, that the original 
document, of which the Evangelists used various copies, 
was written, not in Greek, but in Hebrew, or Chaldee : 
which alone accounts for the phenomenon of their some¬ 
times using different, but synonymous Greek expressions, 
in relating the same thing. “We possess, (says he,) ii 
our three first gospels, three translations of the above- 
mentioned short Life of Christ , which were made indepen¬ 
dently of each other. Examples, (he states,) may be pro¬ 
duced, which betray even an inaccuracy of translation. 

The phenomena, in the verbal agreement of our three 
first gospels, are, however, of such a particular description, 
as to be wholly incompatible with the notion of three inde¬ 
pendent translations of the same original. They are of 
such a particular description, that it lay not within the 
power of transcribers to have produced them. They afford 
so severe a test, that no other assignable cause, than that 
by which the effects were really produced, can be expected 
to account for them.” 

Eichhorn expressly declares that he leaves the question, 
undecided, whether our three first Evangelists made use 
of the Hebrew document, or whether they had only trans¬ 
lations of it. 


beausobre’s hypothesis. 

* u At the head of the first class [of Scriptures] are to 
be placed two gospels, \tkat, according to the Hebrews , and 
that according to the Egyptians.] In my opinion, 
the Gospel according to the Hebrews, is the most ancient 

* 44 II faut mettre a la tete de la premiere classe deux Evangiles . . . Le plus 
ancien de tout est a mon avis, V Evangile selon les Hebreux, que les Nazareenes 
pretendoient etre l’original de S. Matthieu. II commeneoit par ces mots Eytrtru tv 

ra,c wtQct's N^Ss.—ap. Epiph. Hcer. 30.. . 11 parait, par 

les fragmens, qui nous en ont ete conservez qu’il ne contenoit aucune heresie, et 
qu’a quelques circonstances pres l’Histoire de Notre Seigneur y etoit rapportes fi- 
delement. 

C’est dans cet Evangile qu’on lisoit l’histoire de la femme surprise en adultere, 
laquelle est racontee au Chap, viii, de S. Jean. Et cornrne elle n’etoit pas dans plu- 
eieurs exemplaires de ce dernier Evangile, quelques-uns ont conjecture, qu’elle avoit 
cte pi^e do l’Evangile des Nazareens ; et mserte dans S. Jean. Si cela est vrai 
12 * 



126 


beausobre’s hypothesis. 


of all This, the Nazarenes pretended, was the origina* 
from which that of St. Matthew was taken. It began with 
these words— u It happened in the days of Herod.” 

“ It appears from the fragments of it which have been 
preserved to us, that it contained no heresy, and that with 
the exception of some circumstances, the history of our 
Lord, was therein faithfully related. It is in this Gospel 
that we read the history of the woman taken in adultery, 
which is told in the 8th chapter of St. John ; and since 
this was not contained in many copies of this latter gospel, 
some persons have conjectured that it was taken out of 
the Gospel of the Nazarenes, and inserted in that of 
St. John. If this be true, it is a testimony which the 
ancients have rendered to the Gospel of the Nazarenes : 
and if this history was originally contained in St. John’s 
Gospel, it is another proof of the truth of their gospel. 

“ That which has been called the Gospel according 
to the Egyptians, is of the same antiquity. Origen has 
mentioned it; Clemens Alexandrinus had previously quoted 
it in several places ; and if the second epistle of Clemens 
Romanus be authentic, this Gospel would have a testimony 
even yet more ancient than that of those two doctors. 
There is also, in the Library of the Fathers , a commentary 
on St. Luke, attributed to Titus of Bostra, in which this 

c’est un temoignage que les Anciens rendent a PEvangile des Nnzareens ; et si 
cette histoire a ete originairement dans S. Jean, c’est uneautre preuve de la verite 
de leur Kvangile. 

Celui,, que Ton a notnme selon les Egyptiens est de la me me antiquite, Ori- 
gene en a fait mention. Clement d’Alexandria Pavoit deja allegue en quelques 
endroits. Et si la Seconde Epitre de Clement fiomain est de lui, cet Evangile 
auroit un temoignage plus ancien que celui de ces deux Docteurs. On a aussi, 
dans la Bibliotheque des Peres, un Commentaire sur S. Luc qu’on attribue a "J'ite 
de Bostres, dans lequel cet Eveque semble mettre l’l vangile selon les Egyptiens au 
rang de ceux que S. Luc a indiquez, et par consequent anterieurs au sien. Comme 
les Encratites le citoient pour defendre leur Erreur sur le Marriage, les Beres n’en 
ont point rejette absolurneut les temoignages. Ils ont tache de les expliquer dans 
un sens orthodoxe ; ce qui montre, que ce Livre avoit unesorte d’autorite, et qu'on 
ne le soupgonnoit pas meine d’avoir ete suppose par des Heretiques. Quand 
j’ai considere, qu*il etoit regu par les Chretiens d’Fgypte, je n’ai pu me defendre 
de la pensee, qu’il avoit ete ecrit par des Esseniens, qui avoieni ctil en J. 
Christ. La Religion de ces Gens la tenoient beaucoup de la Religion Chretienne. 
L’Evangile des Egyptiens etoit plein de mystique, de paraboles, d’enigmes, d'alle- 
gories. On attribue cela al’espritde la ISation ; pour moi, je Pattribuerois plutot 
a Pesprit des Esseniens. On y trouvoit des sentences, qui paroissoient favoriser 
PEncratisme. Or les Esseniens vivoient dans la continence, et dans Pabstinence. 

II est done bien vraisemblable, que des personnes de cette Secte, Judaique, la seule 
que J. Christ n’ait jamais censuree, s’attacherent au Fils de Dieu, le suiviren ; et 
que, s’etant retires en Fgvpt} apres sa mort, ils y composerent une Histoire d^ sa 
V'ie et de sa Doctrine, qui parut en Fgypte, et qui fut appellee a cause de cela, 
I’Evangile selon les Egyptiens ”— Beausub, Manich. Tom. 1, p. 455, 456. 


beausobre’s hypothesis. 


127 


bishop seems to place the Gospel according to the Egyptians 
in the rank of those which St. Luke had investigated, and 
which consequently were anterior to his. Since the En- 
cratites ( abstemious monks , Thercipeuts) quoted it to defend 
their error concerning marriage, the priests have not alto¬ 
gether rejected its testimonies. They have endeavoured 
to explain it in an orthodox sense ; which shows that this 
book had a sort of authority, and that they never even 
suspected that it had been foisted in by heretics. Upon 
considering ( the unquestionable fact) that it was received by 
the Christians of Egypt, I have not been able to hinder 
myself from thinking, that it was written by the Essenes, 
who had believed in Jesus Christ. The religion of this 
people contained a great deal of the Christian religion. 
The Gospel according to the Egyptians was full of mysticism, 
parables, enigmas and allegories : this has been attributed 
to the spirit of the nation ; for my part, I impute it rather 
to the Essenian cast of character. There may be found 
therein sentences which seemed to favour Encratism 
{Monkery.) Now, the Essenians lived in continence and 
abstinence; it is, then, very probable, that persons of this 
Jewish sect, the only one which Jesus Christ never found 
fault with, attached themselves to the Son of God, fol¬ 
lowed him, and upon retiring into Egypt after his death, 
there, composed a history of his life and doctrine, which 
appeared first in Egypt, and which on that account was 
called the Gospel according to the Egyptians.” 

Thus far the most eminent, ingenuous and learned of 
French divines, Bcausobre* Let the reader take with him 
the light of this great critic’s admission, quoted page 58, 
and of his knowledge of the Essenes and Therapeuts, 
established in our seventh chapter, thereupon following ; 
and cast up the results. He will find that the history of 
ages so “ long ago betid,” never gave to any fact whatever 
a higher degree of certainty,—than the certainty, that this 
Egyptian Gospel was the Diegesis, or first type, from 
which our four Gospels are mere plagiarisms ; and that it 
contained the whole story of Jesus Christ, and the general 
rule of faith professed by a set of Egyptian monks, (from 
whatever sources those monks themselves had derived it, 


* I particularly wish the reader to observe the superior honesty of Beausobre : 
he alone has the moral courage to utter the name of the original, from which our 
gospels are derived, the Gospel according to the Egyptians. All 
The rest, aware of the mighty argument with which it teems, seem to say, “ Take 
any shape but that, and our firm knees should never tremble !” 


128 


BISHOP marsh’s HYPOTHESIS. 


which we shall hereafter enquire,) many years, probably 
ages, before the period assigned to the birth of Christ. 
Consequently, the fallacy of the pretence of the real exist¬ 
ence of such a personage in Palestine, and in or about the 
age of the emperor Augustus, is absolutely demonstrated. 


BISHOP MARSH’S HYPOTHESIS. 

Bishop Marsh, however, demonstrates that the hypo¬ 
thesis of a common Hebrew document, is incapable, in 
any shape whatever, of explaining the phenomena ; and 
labours, as it became a bishop to do, to save the credit of 
divine inspiration, upon the perplexed hypothesis, which 
his indefatigable ingenuity has excogitated, and than 
which perhaps there is none more probable, that, St. 
Matthew , St. Mark, and St. Luke, all three used different 
copies of some common document , which before any of our 
canonical Greek gospels existed, was known as the 
Gospel according to the Hebrews, or the Gospel 

ACCORDING TO THE TWELVE APOSTLES ; a gOSpel, of 

which the ancients speak with great respect ; or the 
Gospel according to the Nazarenes, or the Gospel 
according to Matthew. The materials of lohich, our 
St. Matthew , who wrote in Hebrew, retained, in the language 
in which he found them , Hebrew, Chaldee or Syriac : but 
St. Mark and St. Luke., beside tlicir copies of that original 
Hebrew , Chaldee, or Syriac document, used a Greek trans¬ 
lation oj it, which had been made before any of the additions, 
which our St. Matthew found in his Hebrew copy, had 
been inserted. Lastly, the person who translated St. Matthew's 
Hebrew copy of that original document into Greek, fre¬ 
quently derived assistance from the Greek Translation of S.t. 
Mark, where St. Mark had matter in common with St. J)fal- 
thiw ; that is, to save his own trouble, he copied the 
Greek of St. Mark, instead of continuing his own trans¬ 
lation, de novo , from Matthew’s Hebrew transcript : and 
in those places, but in those places only, where St. Mark had 
no matter in common with St. Matthew, he frequently had re¬ 
course, with the same view, to the ready-made Greek of St. 
Luke's Gospel. But though the person who translated St. 
Matthew’s particular Hebrew copy of the common He¬ 
brew document into Greek, did compare and collate those 
two other gospels with his own, yet Matthew, Mark and 
Luke, had no knowledge of each other's gospels. 



THE GNOMOLOGUE. 


12S 


THE DIEGESIS. 

This first or earlier draught of the life and history of 
Christ, is acknowledged by St. Luke, as the basis of the 
gospel story, and called the Diegesis, or Declaration,* that 
is, narrative of those things which are most surely believed 
among us. In the undistinguished manner of representing, 
his sense in our English text, it escapes observation, that, 
what is rendered a declaration, &c. really is the title 
of the work, of which this gospel professes no more than 
to be “ a setting forth in order ” or more methodical 
arrangement. 


THE GNOMOLOGUE. 

But besides this Diegesis, the common basis of the 
three first gospels, as of many others which many had 
taken in hand , to reduce and arrange into more consistent 
order, there existed also a gnomologue, f or collection of 
precepts, parables, and discourses, which were supposed 
to have been delivered by Christ, at different times, and 
on different occasions ; and this, in addition to the 
Diegesis, was a common authority to St. Matthew and 
St. Luke, though it seems to have been unknown to St. 
Mark. 

Proceeding steadily upon our principle avowed in the 
motto of this work, which binds us to view all pretences 
to any thing out of nature, as a surrender of all the stress 
that is laid on so weak an argument ; the reader will 
know at once in what sense he is to understand the 
bishop’s struggle to bar off the conclusions to which he 
has thus far marshalled our way. Every step which is 
here supposed, he tells us, is perfectly consistent with the 
doctrine of inspiration, not indeed of verbal inspiration, 
but with that sort of inspiration, in which the Holy Ghost 
walched over the sacred compilers with so suspended a 
hand, as left them to the guidance of their own faculties, 
while they kept clear of error ; and only interposed, when 
without this divine assistance, they would have been in 
danger of falling. “ With such an inspiration, (continues 
this Right Reverend expositor of the divine mysteries,) 

* Eniifti]ntQ noVt.oi ens/n^tjoav avara-ao&ai A I H TH2 IN nsqi twv TCsnkrjQo, 
(poQtjusvvjv sv tjuiv TiQayuuTwr —«do|s y. a’uoi’. — Luke i. 1. 

f Such a work seems to be designated under various titles in the Epistles 
ofPaul,asthe Form of Sound Words, the Doctrine, the Words of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, #c.”—1 Tim vi. 3. The Doctrine According to God¬ 
liness, #c .—See Syntagtna, p 74. 



130 of st. John’s gospei in particular. 

the opinion that the Evangelists drew a great part of their 
materials from a written document, is perfectly con¬ 
sistent ; for if that document contained any thing erro¬ 
neous, they had the power of detecting and correcting it.” 

Such is a succinct but accurate view of Bishop Marsh’s 
Dissertation on the Origin and Composition of the Three 
First Canonical Gospels, of 249 pages, appended to the 
third volume of his translation of Michaelis’s Introduction, 
Edit. 2, London 1802. 


CHAPTER XVII. 
of st. John’s gospel in particular. 

All ecclesiastical writers seem to have agreed in repre¬ 
senting the gospel according to St. John, as written at 
some considerable length of time after the publication oi 
the three other gospels, and generally with a view to con¬ 
fute the heresies of the Cerinthians, Sabians, and Gnostics, 
which had either previously existed, or had risen into a 
mischievous notoriety, since the publication of those 
gospels. He had read the three first gospels before he 
composed his own, and appears, says Bishop Marsh, 
to have corrected, though in a very delicate manner, the 
accounts given by his predecessors ; which, if his pre¬ 
decessors were under such an inspiration of the holy 
spirit, as was sufficient to keep them clear of error, must 
indeed have required the greatest delicacy. The Bishop, 
however, has merited our forgiveness of this absurdity, by 
the frankness of his confession, that after all his attempts 
to reconcile the contradiction of St. John’s account of the 
resurrection of Christ with that of Mark and Luke, “ he 
has not been able to do it, in a manner satisfactory either 
to himself, or to any other impartial inquirer into truth.” 
He concludes with even more than necessary caution, 
that “ if it be true that there are passages in St. John’s 
Gospel, which are at variance with the accounts given by 
the other Evangelists, we cannot hesitate to give the pre¬ 
ference to St. John, who wrote last, and appears to have 
had an excellent memory.”* Some persons have need of 
excellent memories. 

* Vol. 3, p. 315.—Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it seems, had but indifferent 
memories, even with the Holy Ghost to jog ’em, and John’s memory haa 
corrected some of the Holy Ghost’s blunders. 

O Sant Esprit! La voila ton ouvrage. 


EVANSON. 


131 


DR. SEMLER’S HYPOTHESIS. 

Dr. Semler contends, that St. John wrote before the 
other three Evangelists, and the weight of his authority, 
which alone would give respectability to his criticism, 
seems to be seconded by the historical evidence of the 
existence of the heretical sects which St. John wrote to 
refute, long anterior to any date which Christians have 
ascribed to the three first gospels. An evangelist, who 
had seen the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and 
wished to second and support their authority, would 
hardly have committed himself in the egregious and irre- 
concileable contradictions which this gospel presents, 
when compared with those : and surely, no one can be 
ignorant that the Platonic and Pythagorean doctrines, 
which distinguish and characterize this gospel, existed 
several ages before the birth of Christ. Nor ought the 
strong arguments which the learned have adduced, in 
proof that Plato and Pythagoras themselves were both 
members of the Therapeutan society, or had derived their 
docti ines from the sacred writings of this sect, to be of 
little weight with us. The universal delusion of eccle¬ 
siastical history consists in ascribing a later date to earlier 
institutions, in representing that which was the origination, 
as the corruption of Christianity, and in bringing down 
the monkish and monastic epocha to any period below 
the second or third century, in order to keep the clue of 
the whole labyrinth out of sight, and to evade the clear 
solution of all the difficulties of the inquiry, which presents 
itself in the fact that Eusebius has attested, that the 
Therapeutan monks were Christians, many ages before 
the period assigned to the birth of Christ; and that the 
Diegesis and Gnomologue, from which the Evangelists 
compiled their gospels, were writings which had for ages 
constituted the sacred scriptures of those Egyptian vision¬ 
aries. 

EVANSON. 

The learned Evanson, who, though a Unitarian divine, 
professes himself to be a firm believer in revelation, and 
a disciple of Jesus Christ,* marks with triple notes of 
admiration his astonishment that the orthodox should 
* In his Work on the Dissonance of the Four Evangelists, published 1792, 

p. 222. 


132 


FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL GEOGRAPHY. 


receive gospels which so flatly contradict each other, a? 
each equally true. And of the adorable miracle of turn¬ 
ing water into wine, he observes, that coming in so very 
exceptionable a form, upon the testimony of so very excep¬ 
tionable an historian, it is altogether as unworthy of 
belief as the fabulous Roman Catholic legend of St. Ni¬ 
cholas’s chickens. 


BRET SCHNEIDER. 

Since Christian tolerance has endured these pregnant 
admissions against the claims of divine revelation, the 
sceptical world has been enriched by the Probabilia of 
Bretschneider, published at Leipsic 1820, in which that 
illustrious divine, compatibly with an equally sincere pro¬ 
fession of faith in Christianity ; and what is in some views 
a much more important consideration, compatibly with 
keeping his divinity professorship, and presidency of a 
Protestant university ; has shown that the Jesus depicted 
in the fourth gospel is wholly out of keeping, and entirely 
a different sort of character from the Jesus of Matthew, 
Mark and Luke, and that it is utterly impossible that both 
descriptions could be true ; that this gospel contains no 
testimony of an independent historian, or of a witness to 
the things therein related, but is derived solely from some 
written or unwritten tradition ; and that its author was 
neither an inhabitant of Palestine, nor a Jew.* 

This, however, is not more than may, from internal 
evidence, be argued against the other evangelists, or at 
least Matthew and Mark, whose writings betray so great 
an ignorance of the geography, statistics, and even lan¬ 
guage of Judea, as the most illiterate inhabitants of that 
country could by no possibility have fallen into —exempli 
gratia. 


FALSEHOOD ^OF GOSPEL GEOGRAPHY. 

1. u He came unto the sea of Galilee , through the midst oj 
the coasts of Decapolis (Mark vii. 31): when there were 
no coasts of Decapolis, nor was the name so much as 
known before the reign of the emperor Nero. 

2. 46 He departed from Galilee , and came into the coasts oj 

* Jesus, quern depinxit, quartum evangelium, valde diversus est a Jesu 
in prioribus evangeliis descripto—nec utraque descriptio simul vera esse 
protest—Evangelista, nec ea quae facta esse tradidit, ipse videt, sed e traditione 

aut scripta aut non scripta, hausit—nec Palaestinensis nec Judaeus fuit._ 

Bretschneider in Ordirie Argumentorum. 




FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL GEOGRAPHY. 133 

Judea , beyond Jordan ,” (Matt. xix. 1): when the Jordan 
itself was the eastern boundary of Judea, and there were 
no coasts of Judea beyond it.* 

3. tc But when he heard that Archelaus did reign in Judea , 
in the room of his father Herod , he was afraid to go thither 
notwithstanding being warned of God in a dream , he turned 
aside into the parts of Galilee , and he came and dwell in a city 
called Nazareth ; that it might be fulfilled , which was spoken 
by the prophets , he shall be called a Nazarene ,” (Matt. ii. 22) : 
when—1. It was a son of Herod who reigned in his stead, 
in Galilee as well as in Judea, so that he could not be 
securer in one province than in the other ; and when— 
2. It was impossible for him to have gone from Egypt to 
Nazareth, without travelling through the whole extent of 
Archelaus’s kingdom, or making a peregrination through 
the deserts on the north and east of the Lake Asphaltites, 
and the country of Moab ; and then, either crossing the 
Jordan into Samaria or the Lake of Gennesareth into 
Galilee, and from thence going to the city of Nazareth ; 
which is no better geography, than if one should describe 
a person as turning aside from Cheapside into the parts of 
Yorkshire ; and when—3. There were no prophets what¬ 
ever, or certainly none that either Jew or Christian would 
allow to be prophets, who had prophesied that Jesus 
u should be called a Nazarene and when—4. It is not true 
(according to the subsequent history) that Jesus was ever 
called a Nazarene ; and when—5. Nazarene was not 
a name derived from any place whatever, but from a 
cect of Egyptian monks, and was none other than of the 
same significancy as Essene or Therapeut—a fact which 
throws further light on this monkish legend ; and when— 
6. Had Jesus been a Jew, and derived his epitheton 
according to Jewish customs from the place of his birth, 
he would have been called, not Jesus of Nazareth, but 
Jesus of Bethlehem. 

4. After Christ and the Devil had ended their forty days’ 
familiarity in the wilderness, “ He departed into Galilee , 
and leaving Nazareth , he came and dwelt in Capernaum , 
which is upon the sea-coast in the borders of Zabulon , and 
Nephthalim , that it might be fulfilled , which was spoken by 
Esaias the prophet , saying , The land o f Zabulon and the land 
of Nephthalim , by the way of the sea , beyond Jordan , Galilee 
of the Gentiles ,” &c. (Matt. iv. 12, 13) ; when, to Esaias, or 
any inhabitant of Judea, the country beyond must be the 

* Evanson, p. 169. 


13 


134 


FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL DATES. 


country east of the Jordan, (as Gaulonitis, or Galilee of 
the Gentiles, is well known to have been); whereas Caper 
naum was a city on the western side of the Lake of Gen« 
nesareth, through which the Jordan flows. 

5. u He departed into Galilee , and leaving Nazareth , came 
and dwelt at Capernaum ,” (M'att. iv. 13): as if he imagined 
that the city Nazareth was not as properly in Galilee as 
Capernaum was ; which is much such geographical accu¬ 
racy, as if one should relate the travels of a hero, who 
departed into Middlesex, and leaving London, came and 
dwelt in Lombard-street. 


FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL DATES. 

1. The principal indications of time occurring in the 
Gospels, are— 

u And it came to pass in those days , that there went out 
a decree from Ccesar Augustus , that all the world should he 
taxed; and this taxing icas first made ivhen Cyrenius was 
governor of Syria .”—Luke ii. 1, 2. 

It happens however, awkwardly enough. 

1st. That there is no mention in any ancient Roman or 
Greek historian, of any general taxing of people all over 
the worldr, or the whole Roman empire, in the time of 
Augustus, nor of any decree of the emperor for that pur¬ 
pose: and this is an event of such character and magni¬ 
tude, as to exclude even the possibility of the Greek and 
Roman historians omitting to have mentioned it, had it 
ever really happened. 

2dly. That in those days, that is, “ when Jesus was 
born, in the days of Herod the king,” Judea was not at 
that time a Roman province ; and it is therefore absolutely 
impossible that there could have been any such taxing 
there, by any such decree, of any such Caesar Augustus. 

3dly. That Cyrenius was not Governor of Syria, till ten 
or twelve years after the time assigned as that of the birth 
of Christ. 

4thly. That the whole passage is taken from one of those 
apochryphal gospels which were in full vogue long before 
this of St. Luke was written ; some of which, by leading 
the times and seasons entirely in the hand of God, repre¬ 
sented that this taxing was first made when King Solomon 
was reigning in all his glory, so that Pontius Pilate £ T id 
he were contemporary, which did well enough before e 



FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL PHRASEOLOGY. 


135 


wicked and sceptical art of criticism began to undermine 
the pillars of faith. 

2. “ There were present at that season , some that told 

him of the Galileans , whose blood Pilate had mingled with 
their sacrifices .”—Luke xiii. 1. 

No historian, Jewish, Greek or Roman, has made the 
least allusion to this bloody work ; which it is next to 
impossible that they could have failed to do, had it really 
happened. 

Such an act was entirely out of character ; for Pilate was 
a Pagan and a sacrificer himself, and would never have 
considered idolatry as a crime in any body. We have the 
solution of the difficulty at once, by admitting the proba¬ 
bility, that as the name of King Herod was substituted in 
the later or more orderly and methodical transcripts of the 
Diegesis, for that of King Solomon, so the act of good 
King Josiah (2 Kings xxiii.) has here been fathered upon 
Pontius Pilate. 


FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL STATISTICS. 

1. Annas and Caiaphas being the high-priests (Luke iii. 
2) ; when any person acquainted with the history and polity 
of the Jews, must have known that there never was but 
one high-priest at a time, any more than among ourselves 
there is never but one Archbishop of Canterbury. 

2. Caiaphas , which was the high-priest that same year , 
(John viii. 13,) being high-priest that year, he prophesied 
(John xi. 50) ; when no Jew could have been ignorant 
that the high-priest’s office was not annual, but for life, 
and that prophesying was no privilege nor part of that 
office. 

3. u Search and look , for out of Galilee ariseth no pro¬ 
phet ,” (John vii. 52) ; when the most distinguished of the 
Jewish prophets, Nahum and Jonah, were both Galileans. 


FALSEHOOD OF GOSPEL PHRASEOLOGY. 

“ They brought the ass and the colt , and put on them their 
clothes , and set him thereon ,” (Matt. xxi. 7) ; i. e. like Mr. 
Ducrow, at Astley’s Theatre, a-straddle across them both. 
This translator of Matthew’s supposed original Hebrew 
copy of the Diegesis, being so grossly ignorant of the 
common pleonasm of the Hebrew language, as to mistake 




136 


ULTIMATE RESULT. 


Its ordinary emphatic way of indicating a particular 
object by a repetition of the word ; as, an ass , u even that 
which was the son” or foal, or had been born of an ass ; for 
two of the species.* 

2. u Ad he said untc them , Go wash in the pool oj 
Siloam , which is by interpretation Sent ,” (John xix. 7) ;f 
which happens to be an interpretation which no Jewish 
writer could possibly have given : Siloam signifying- not 
Sent , but the place of the sending forth of waters, th?t is, 
the sluice: to say nothing of the absurdity of representing 
the pool as sent to the man, instead of the man being sent 
to the pool : or of the absurdity of supposing that one who 
was blind, could see his way thither. Sure, here seems 
to have been a greater chance of the poor nr.n’s getting 
his baptism than his conversion. This text ha*, so puzzled 
the commentators, that they have endeavoured to get the 
words “ which is by interpretation , Sent ,” considered as 
a mere marginal note ; but the authority of the Codices 
attests them to be a part of the text itself. Whatever, 
then, be the credit due to the three first evangelists, the 
fourth may well be considered as neither better nor worse, 
and must stand or fall with them. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


ULTIMATE RESULT. 

Such errors as we have exemplified, and innumerable 
other such there are, in everyone of the four gospels, can 
be accounted for on no suppositions congruous with the 
idea of their having ocen written either by any such per- 

* Similar pleonasms, no* without considerable beauty, are- 

“ God is not a man, that he should die, nor the son of man, that he should re¬ 
pent.”—Numb, j^xiii. 19. 

“ Shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion.”— Numb, 
xxiii. 21. 

“ Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man, that thou 
so regardest him ?”—Psalm. 

t Chap. xix. 7. Ubi auctor vocem 2iX(uau falso interpretatur per antm aiiitvoc, 
et ex errore niSt? missus, pronuntiavit E mis sin, scil. aquarum Ejusmodi 

orror vero, nec Joanni Apostolo, neque alii cuidain scriptori Judgeo 
accidere potuisset. Codicum auctoritate prorsus genuina judicanda # sunt ista 
verba.— Brets chneider. 


ULTIMATE RESULT 


137 


sons, at any such time, or under any such circumstances, 
as have been generally assumed for them. But we may 
challenge the whole world’s history to furnish, from a 
period of such remote antiquity, a coincidence of circum¬ 
stantial evidence to prove any fact whatever, so strong, 
so concatenated, and so entirely responsive to all the 
claims of the phenomena, as the evidence here adduced, 
that the first types of the Gospel-story sprang from the 
Egyptian monks, and constituted the substance of the 
mystical romance, which they had modified from the Pagan 
mythology, in conformity to their professed and acknow¬ 
ledged Eclectic Philosophy, and imposed for antecedent 
ages on the ecclesiastical colonies, which had migrated 
from the mother church of Alexandria. 

Thus, after Europe and all Christian communities have 
been for so many ages led to believe that in the four gos¬ 
pels they possessed the best translations that could be 
derived, in their several languages, from the original 
inspired text of immediate disciples and contemporaries 
of Christ ; it is at length admitted, that mankind have 
been and are egregiously deceived. 1. It is admitted, 
that these gospels were not written by the persons to 
whom they are ascribed ; 2. That Matthew, Mark, Luke 
and John, were only translators or copyists of previously 
existing documents ; 3. Composed by we know not whom ; 
4. We know not how ; 5. We know not where ; 6. We 

know not when; 7. And containing we know not what. 
The very first assertion in the title-page of our New Tes¬ 
tament, in stating that it is translated from the original 
Greek, involves a fallacy ; since it is absolutely certain 
that the Greek, from which our translations were made, 
was well nigh as far from being original, as the translations 
themselves, and it is absolutely uncertain what the original 
was. 

Irenaeus indeed, the disciple of Polycarp, which Poly¬ 
carp is said to have conversed with St. John, and who 
himself lived and wrote in the middle of the second cen¬ 
tury, is the first of all the Fathers who mentions the four 
evangelists by name. But if this testimony were as cer¬ 
tainly unexceptionable, as it certainly is not —the being 
able to trace these scriptures so high or even higher than 
the second century, would be no relief to the difficulties of 
the evidence ; since the same testimony attests the ante¬ 
cedent prevalence of the heresies of the Marcionites, Ebion- 
13 * 


13S 


ULTIMATE RESULT. 


ites and Valentinians, which were to be refuted out of these 
gospels, and which, as they were undoubtedly heresies from 
Christian doctrine, carry us as much too far beyond the 
mark, as it might have been feared that we should fall 
short of it; and go to prove, that as those heresies, so 
these gospels which refuted them, existed before the time 
ascribed to the birth of Christ. All the indications of date 
contained in those gospels themselves, are manifestly 
erroneous. It is universally known and admitted, that we 
have no history, nor Christian writing whatever besides, 
that so much as purports to come within the limits of the 
first century. At any rate, the predicament of being too 
soon on the stage, is as fatal to the congruities of the 
story, as being too late. 

“ The history of the New Testament,” says Dr. Lard- 
ner, “is attended with many difficulties.”—Vol. 1. p. 136. 

What could he mean by difficulties , but appearances of 
not being true ? What could he mean by many difficulties, 
but that such appearances are not one, two, or a dozen, 
but meet us in every page ? And what means the labour 
of his cumbrous volumes, but so much labour of so great 
a man, laid out on the sophistical business of making what 
he virtually admits appears to be falsehood, appear to be 
truth. 

All these geographical, chronological, political, and 
philological perplexities, are such as never could have 
crossed the path of straight-forward narrative ; but are 
such exactly as would occur to Eclectic plagiaries, engaged 
in the business of setting forth in order a tale of the then 
olden time ; fitting new names and new scenery to the 
characters and catastrophes of an antiquated plot ; and 
endeavouring to put an appearance of history and reality 
upon the creations of fictions and romance. 

That this Eclectic philosophy of the Alexandrine monks 
is the true parent of their Diegesis, of which the gospels 
that have come down to us, are the legitimate issue, is 
the demonstration that will meet us now at every stage of 
that comparison of the Pagan and Christian theology, 
which our investigation challenges from us. 


PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 189 

CHAPTER XIX. 

RESEMBLANCES OF THE PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THE¬ 
OLOGY-AUGURY AND BISHOPS-AESCULAPIUS, JESUS 

CHRIST-HERCULES, JESUS CHRIST-ADONIS., JESUS 

CHRIST. 

No conviction of our reason could be conceived to be 
more absolute and conclusive, than that which assures us 
of the utter impossibility of there being any common fea¬ 
tures of resemblance between divine truth and human 
imposture. We are not conscious of our own existence 
with a greater degree of certainty, than that by which we 
know, that a religion which hath “God for its author, hap¬ 
piness for its end, and truth without any mixture of error 
for its matter,” could have no likeness to the foolish and 
impotent devices of weak and wicked men. The existence 
of such a likeness or resemblance between any two re¬ 
ligions whatever, however superior the one might be to 
the other, would itself constitute the surest possible 
demonstration that both of them were false. In a religion, 
then, which purports to be from God, we have a right to 
expect internal evidences of its divinity, and a character 
as infinitely superior to any devices of men—as infinite 
wisdom must be superior to human ignorance. 

Having, then, obtained the consent of all parties, that the 
Christian Saviour, if any such person ever lived at all, 
must have lived and conversed with men in the era of 
Augustus, that is, eighteen hundred years ago, and that 
all the facts and doctrines of his religion are contained in 
the book called the New Testament* ; this great and im¬ 
portant question becomes capable of being put to the test— 
from which, nothing that is honest would shrink—from 
which nothing that is true, can have any thing to fear.— 
Nothing which can be shown to have been in existence 
before the alleged time of the birth of Christ, nothing 
which came into existence long after u his glorious resur¬ 
rection and ascension,” can have any claim to be taken 
for Christianity. If before the date assigned to Christianity, 
and in regions and countries where a religion under that 
name was not known, we shall find all the ideas which 
that religion involves, pre-existent, and already familiar to 
the apprehensions of men ; there is no alternative but that 

* We say not the Old Testament, though the Bible is a term that compre¬ 
hends both ; the Old Testament will never be vindicated, and ought not to be 
attacked by any man. 


40 


PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 


the conclusion must be endured. To attempt to resist that 
conclusion, is to resist truth itself; to be afraid to do jus¬ 
tice to the arguments that may lead to that conclusion, is 
to surrender it, without resistance. 


THE PAGANS THE CHRISTIANS 

1. Apologised for all the ap- 1. Use precisely the same ar- 
parent absurdities of their sys- gument in defence of their sys¬ 
tem, by pleading that nothing in tern, only denying the benefit 
it was to be understood accord- of it, to their Pagan adversa- 
ing to the gross and revolting ries. 

sense of the letter, but that the whole was to be explained 
conformably to a mystical allegorical meaning which con¬ 
veyed the most sublime truths. 

2. u For those who preside 2. God also hath made ug 


over the holy Scriptures, phi¬ 
losophise over them, and ex¬ 
pound their literal sense by 
allegory.”— Eusebius , concerning 
the Therapeutan priests. 


CICERO. 

Concerning the Pagan Augurs. 

3. “ No order of true religion 
passes over the law concerning 
the description of priests. 

4. “ For some have been in¬ 
stituted for the business of paci¬ 
fying the Gods. 

5. u To preside at sacred cer¬ 
emonies. 

6. “ Others to interpret the 
predictions of the prophet. 

7. u Not of the many, lest 
the number should be infinite. 

8. u But that none beside the 
College should understand those 
predictions which had been pub¬ 
licly recognized. 


able ministers of the New Tes¬ 
tament, not of the letter, but of 
the spirit. (2 Corinth. 3, 6.)— 
Which things are an allegory. 
(4 Gal. 24.)— St. Paul , concern¬ 
ing the Christian priests. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Concerning the Christian Bishops. 

3. And God hath set some in 
the church—first apostles, sec¬ 
ondarily prophets, thirdly teach 
ers.—1 Corinth, xii. 28. 

4. O Lord spare thy people, 
and be not angry with us for 
ever.— Liturgy * 

5. Let the prophets speak two 
or three, and let the others 
judge.— 1 Corinth, xiv. 29. 

6. And let one interpret.—1 
Corinth, xiv. 27. 

7. Let it be by two, or at the 
most by three, and that by 
course.—1 Corinth, xiv. 27. 

8. Because it is given untc 
you (the College of Apostles) 
to know the mysteries of the 
kingdom of heaven, but to 
them it is not given.—Matt, 
xiii. 11 


* This attribute of being angry for ever, is peculiar to the Christian God. aid 
has become, in consequence, peculiarly characteristic of Christians. 


PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 


141 


CICERO 

9. “ For augury, or the power 
of foretelling future events, is 
the greatest and most excellent 
thing in the republic, and na¬ 
turally allied to authority. 


10. “ Nor do I thus think, be¬ 
cause I am an augur myself; 
but because it is absolutely ne¬ 
cessary for us to think so. 


11. u For if the question be 
of legal right, what is greater 
than the power to put away 
from the highest governments, 
their right of holding counsels, 
and issuing decrees : or to abo¬ 
lish them when holden ? What 
more awful, than for any thing 
undertaken, to be done away, 
if but one augur hath said other¬ 
wise. 


12. u What more magnificent 
than to be able to decree, that 
the supreme governors should 
resign their magistracy ? What 
more religious than to give or 
not to give the right of treating 
or transacting business with the 
annul a law if it hath not been duly passed,—and for noth¬ 
ing that hath been done by the government, either at home 
or abroad, to be approved by any one, without their au¬ 
thority ? # — J)e Legibus, lib. ii. 12.” 


NEW TESTAMENT. 

9. For greater is he that pro- 
phesieth, than he that speaketh 
with tongues. Desire spiritual 
gifts, but rather that ye may 
prophecy. He that prophe- 
sieth, speaketh unto men to 
edification and exhortation, and 
comfort.—1 Corinth, xiv. 3. 

10. Neither have I written 
these things, that it should be so 
done unto me.—1 Corinth, ix. 
15.—Inasmuch as I am the apos¬ 
tles of the Gentiles, I magnify 
mine office.— Horn. xi. 13. 

11. Dare any of you, having 
a matter against another, go to 
law before the unjust, and not 
before the saints. Know ye 
not that we shall judge angels r 
How much more things that 
pertain to this life ?—1 Corinth 
vi. 3. 

If he neglect to hear the 
church, let him be unto thee as 
an heathen man, and a publican. 
—Matt, xviii. 17. 

12. Yerily I say unto you, 
whatsoever ye shall bind on 
earth, shall be bound in heaven ; 
and whatsoever ye shall loose on 
earth, shall be loosed in heav¬ 
en.—Matt. xvii. 18. 

people ? What than to 


* No wonder, then, that such a power was not allowed to be held in separa¬ 
tion from the imperial dignity itself. The Jewish Messiah, or Christ, united in his 
own person the several olfices of prophet, priest, and king. The figures of Rom¬ 
ulus, the founder of Rome, represent him as clad in the trabea, a robe of state, 
which implied an ecclesiastical as well as a secular dignity. The lituus, or stall 
of augury in his hand, is still retained as the crosier of our Christian bishops 
“ This latter mark of distinction (the episcopal crosier) usually attends the repre¬ 
sentations of the heads of Julius Caesar in old gems and medals, in signification 
that he was high-priest and king, by the same right as Romulus had been.” Bell's 
Pantheon in loco quo. Augustus, Vespasian, Verus, &c. are in like manner ac¬ 
companied with the insignia of augury. So sacred were these holy orders , that 
none who had once been a member of the sacred college, could ever be degrad- 


142 


PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 


PHILO. 

13. “In addition to these cir¬ 
cumstances, Philo describes the 
order of preferment among those 
who aspire to ecclesiastical min¬ 
istrations, and the offices of the 
deacons, and the pre-eminency 
above all of the bishop.”— See 
chap. 10. 


NEW TESTAMENT. 

13. To all the saints in Christ 
Jesus which are at Philippi with 
the bishops and deacons.— 
1 Philip, i. 

For they that have used the 
office of a deacon well, pur¬ 
chase to themselves a good de¬ 
gree. 

If a man desire the office of a 
bishop, he desireth a good work. 
—1 Timothy iii. 13. 


ROYAL PRIESTS. 

Among the ancient Greeks, the dignity of the priesthood 
was esteemed so great in most of their cities; and espe¬ 
cially at Athens, as to be joined with that of the civil ma¬ 
gistrate. Thus Anius, in Virgil, was king of Delos, and 
priest of Apollo.* In Egypt, the kings were all priests ; 
and if any one who was not of the royal family, usurped 
the kingdom, he was obliged to be consecrated to the 
priesthood, before he could ascend the throne. At Spar¬ 
ta, the kings, immediately upon their promotion, took upon 
them the two priesthoods of the heavenly, and the Lace¬ 
demonian Jupiter ; and all the sacrifices for the safety of 
the commonwealth, were offered by them only. 


SUBORDINATE CLERGY. 

Besides these royal priests, there were others taken from 
the body of the people, and consecrated to the service of 
religion. These were all accounted the ministers of the 
gods, and by them commissioned to dispense their favour 
to mankind. Whoever was admitted to this holy office, 
was obliged to be of the most exemplary and virtuous 
character. They were required to be upright in mind and 
pure in heart and life, As well as perfect in body : 

they were to live chastely and temperately, abstaining 
from those pleasures which were considered innocent in 
other men. After their admission into holy orders, 
though marriage was not altogether forbidden, they were 
obliged and expected to preserve the most rigid chastity. 

ed : the commission of the greatest enormity was not held competent to effect theii 
indefeasible sanctity of character, or to forfeit their title of The Reverend 
which their descendants still retain, in a never-interrupted succession of inheritance 
from their Pagan ancestors. 

* Rex Anius, Rex idem hominum, Phoebique Sacerdos.— Virg. AEn. 3, v. 80 




PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY. 


143 


They endeavoured to weaken or overcome “ all the 
sinful lusts of the flesh,” by drinking the juice of hem¬ 
lock, and by strewing the herb agnus castus, or chaste lamb 
under their bed clothes, which was believed to possess re¬ 
frigerating qualities. 


THE PRIESTS OF CYBELE 

Who held the dignity of Theotokos , Deipara, or Mother 
of God, which has since been transferred to the Virgin Ma¬ 
ry, so conscientiously cut themselves off' from the faculty 
of sinful sensations, as to deserve the commendation ol 
Christ himself—Matt. xix. 12 ; and to be imitated in so un¬ 
equivocal a proof of sincere devotion, by the most learned 
and distinguished of Christian bishops, Origen, Melito, 
&c. 


PARASITES OR DOMESTIC CHAPLAINS. 

Another holy order of priests, was that of the Parasiti, 
or Parasites, whose office was to gather from the husband¬ 
men, the corn that was to be set aside for the services of 
the ministry, it was at last an office of great honour ; 
the Parasites being by the ancient laws reckoned among 
the chief magistrates. In every village of the Athenians, 
they maintained these priests at the public expense ; but 
afterwards, to ease the commonwealth of this burden, the 
wealthier sort were obliged to entertain them at their own 
tables, whence the word parasite, in later times, has been 
put for a flatterer, who, for the sake of a dinner, conforms 
to every one’s humour. This holy order of Parasites, is 
continued in our Christian Church, in precisely the same 
character and function, under the less invidious name of 
domestic chaplains, who, hanging about the establishment 
of princes and nobles, generally contrive to worm them- 
# selves into the most lucrative ecclesiastical benefices up¬ 
on the well-known economy. 

“ Non missura est cutem nisi plena cruoris hirudo *'* 


CONVERSION FROM PAGANISM TO CHRISTIANITY, BROUGHT 
ABOUT ENTIRELY BY A TRANSFER OF PROPERTY. 

Notwithstanding the conversion of Constantine to the 
Christian faith, the title, the ensigns, and the preroga- 

* The leech will not drop from your skin till it is full of blood .—Horace 





144 


CONVERSION. 


tives of sovereign pontiff were accepted wit! out hesita¬ 
tion, by seven sucessive Christian emperors. Gratian 
was the first who refused the pontifical robe*, and threw 
off the badges of Paganism ; for though he retained the 
title of Sovereign Pontiff, he performed no part of its func¬ 
tions.! From motives no doubt of the most disinterested 
piety, “this emperor seized the lands and endowments 
which had been allotted to maintain the priests and sacri¬ 
fices of the ancient Paganism, and appropriated them to 
his own use.”! a. d. 382. 

We have yet extant, and happily I have here on my 
table, the celebrated oration delivered by Julius Firmicius 
Maternus, to the Emperors Constantius and Constans, 
the sons and successors of Constantine the Great ; calling 
on those holy Emperors, to seize all the remaining proper¬ 
ty of the professors of Paganism, which his father had 
spared, and thus by reducing them to beggary, to starve 
them into salvation. 

u Take away, take away, in perfect security, (exclaims 
this disinterested Christian orator.) 0 ! most holy empe¬ 
rors, take away all the ornaments of their temples. Let 
the fire of the mint, or the flames of the mines, melt down 
their gods. Seize upon all their wealthy endowments, 
and turn them to your own use and property.§ And 0 ! 
most sacred emperors, it is absolutely necessary for you 
to revenge and punish this evil. You are commanded by 
the law of the Most High God, to persecute all sorts of 
idolatry with the utmost severity : hear and commend to 
your own sacred understandings, what God himself com¬ 
mands. He commands you not to spare your son, or 
your brother ; lie bids you plunge the avenging knife 
even into the heart of your wife that sleeps in your 


* Gibbon, vol. 3, p. 499. 

t Bell’s Panth. vol. 1, p. 19. t Lardner, vol. 4, p. 455. 

§ Tollite, tollite securi,*sacratissimi Imperatores, ornamenta templorum. De 
istos, aut monetae ignis, aut rnetallorum coquat flamma. Donaria universa ad util— 
itatem vestram, dominiumque transferte, (p. 59.) Sed et vobis, Sacratissimi Im¬ 
peratores, ad vindicandum et puniendum hoc malum necessitas imperatur, et hoc. 
vobis Dei surnmi lege praecipitur, ut severitas vestra idolatriae facina* 1 omnifarium 
persequatur. Audite et commendate sanctis sensibus vestris quid dt? isto facinore 
Deus jubeat. Nec filio jubet parci, nec fratri, et per amatam conjugem quae est 
in sinu tuo, gladium vindicern ducit: amicum quoque sublimi severitate persequi- 
tur, et ad discerpenda sacrilegorum corpora, omnis populus armatur. Integris 
etiam civitatibus, si in isto fuerint facinore deprehensae, decernuntur excidia. Mis- 
ericordiae suae vobis Sacratissimi Imperatores, Deus summus praemia pollicetur.— 
Facite itaque quod jubet, camplete quod praecipit, (p. 63.) De Errore 
Prof. Rel. 


CONVERSION. 


145 


bosom ; to persecute your dearest friend with a sublime 
severity, and to arm your whole people against these 
sacrilegious Pagans, and tear them limb from limb. Yea! 
even whole cities, if you should find this guilt in them, 
must, be cut off. 0! most holy emperors! God promises 
you the rewards of his mercy, upon condition of your thus 
acting. Do therefore what he commands—complete what 
he prescribes.” 

Nothing can be more orthodox and truly Christian than 
this oration. It presents us a faithful picture of the genius 
and character of primitive Christianity. The reader will 
perhaps think he has enough of it. The Orator of the 
Areopagus, however he might have transgressed’the laws 
of his country, transgressed not the fair sense of historic 
fact and license of oratorical figuration, when he said, 
“ Astonished Paganism grew pale, when she saw the blood¬ 
stained banner of the cross, and from her innocent hand, 
the flowery chaplets of the chaste Diana, and of the hos 
pitable Jupiter, down dropt, and bloody treason triumphed 
over them!” 

We have, of the same age, a beautiful contrast to this 
spiritual oration of Firmicius, in an epist.e of the Pagan 
orator, Libanius, in which he discovers at the same time, 
what the tempers and dispositions of a Pagan were, 
towards those who left the faith of their ancestors, and 
embraced the new-fangled doctrines of Christianity. 
“ Orion, (writes he), was my friend, when he was in 
prosperity, and now he is in affliction, I have the same 
disposition towards him. If he thinks differently from us, 
concerning the deity, he hurts himself, being deceived; 
but it is not fit that his friends should therefore look upon 
him as an enemy.”* Alas! since one who had once been 
a minister of the gospel, but is now prisoner for his con¬ 
scientious opposition to it, fell into affliction and differ¬ 
ence of opinion, concerning the deity, it was not only 
forgotten that he had once been a friend, but that he had 
ever been a fellow creature, a brother, or a son.f 

We have also still extant, the petition of Symmachus, 
the high priest of Paganism, which he presented to the 
Emperors Valentinian, Theodosius and Arcadius, and for 
having delivered which, the Emperor Theodosius ctm* 
manded the reverend orator to descend from the pul[ t, 
and go immediately into exile— (Oakham!) 

* Epistle 730, p. 349, Lardnero, citante in loco quo. 

+ See Origenes Christiana, 18th Letter in “The Lion,” vol. 1. 

14 


146 


CONVERSION. 


But impious and unreasonable as it was held to be in 
Christian ears, it was not worse than of a piece w ith the 
extract which I here subjo]n:— 

“ Does not the religion of the Romans come under the 
protection of the Roman laws? By what name shall we 
call an alienation of rights, which no laws or circum 
stances of things ever justified? Freed men receive lega¬ 
cies, nor are even slaves deprived of the privilege of 
receiving what is left to them by will —they are only the 
noble Vestals, and the attendants on the sacred rites upon 
which the public welfare depends, who are deprived of the 
privilege of receiving estates legally bequeathed to them. 
The Treasury detains the lands which were given to the 
Vestals and their officers by our dying progenitors. Do 
but consult your own generous minds, and you will not 
think that those things belong to the public, which you 
have already appropriated to the use of others. If length 
of time be of weight in matters of religion, surely we 
ought to preserve that faith which has subsisted for so 
many ages, and to follow our parents, who have so happily 
followed theirs. We ask for no other state of religion than 
that which secured the empire to your blessed Father, 
and gave him the happiness of a legitimate issue to succeed 
him. That blessed prince now looks down from heaven, 
and beholds the tears of the priests,’ and considers the 
breach of their privileges as a reflection upon himself.”* 

The Holy Father and Bishop St. Ambrose, strenuously 
opposed this petition, and ingeniously argued from a text 
of scripture, which served to carry the point in his days, 
but which since has become apocryphal, and consequently 
is no longer to be found; but this it was, “ all the earth 
belongeth unto the righteous,! but to the infidels not one 
penny,” (obelus). 

Lardner is anxious to vindicate the disinterestedness 
of St. Ambrose, who opposed himself to this unr isonable 
remonstrance of “ these poor blind benighted Pagans;” and 
puts in proof, the letter written to the Emperor Cugenius 
in the year 392, in which St. Ambrose declares, that u those 
revenues had not been taken away by his, advice, only he 
had advised that when once they were taken away, they 
should not be given back again.” That’s Christian all 
over! as much as to say, u I’ll have nothing to do with 
thieving, but I’ll go your halves!” 

* Citante in loco, Lardnero. 

t “ The righteous who could that be but the orthodox clergy ? 


CONVERSION. 


147 


The reader has only to turn his eye to our table of the 
Ecclesiastical Revenues at this day, and he may solve as 
tie shall please, the important question—whether, if these 
revenues were taken away from the church, and trans¬ 
ferred to the professors of as false a religion as ever 
was on earth, our churchmen would not run after the 
revenues, and leave Christianity to the fate of Paganism. 
It is a remarkable fact, that in the Corpus juris , or whole 
body of Roman law, notwithstanding all the dreadful 
stories of persecutions and martyrdom, which Christians 
relate the t they uave endured from the Pagan magistrates, 
there never was on record any law whatever, that had 
been enacted against Christians—while there were and 
have been the most sanguinary laws enacted for the 
prosecution and eternal persecution of unbelievers. 

By a law of the Emperors Valentinius and Theodosius, 
whoever had been known to have apostatised frem the 
Christian religion, was debarred from the right of be¬ 
queathing property by will —nor was the Pagan religion 
effectually suppressed, till the profession of it was prohib¬ 
ited under the penalty of death. Thousands suffered that 
penalty, whom we are not allowed to consider as martyrs. 
It is well known, that the most holy and truly Christian 
Emperor Theodosius, put in practice the advice of Julius 
Firmicius, upon the heterodox citizens of Thessalonica, to 
the letter. He put the whole city to the sword, and u ut¬ 
terly destroyed every thing that breathed, even as the 
Lord God of Israel commanded.”—An example which was 
followed in like manner, on the ever memorable day of 
St. Bartholomew, August 24, 1572, when seventy thousand 
Protestants, subjects of the most Christian Charles IX., 
were butchered throughout France, at the instigation of 
his pious mother, Catherine de Medicis. Mr. Higgins, a 
sincere believer, thus concludes his beautiful work :—• 
“ Look at Ireland, look at Spain, in short, look every where , 
and you will see the priests reeking with gore. They have 
converted , and are converting , populous and happy nations 
into deserts, and have made our beautiful world into a 
slaughter-house, drenched with blood and tears .”—Celtic 
Druids , p. 299. 


148 


AESCULAPIUS—JESUS CHRIST 


CHAPTER XX. 

AESCULAPIUS-JESUS CHRIST. 


AESCULAPIUS. 

Mr. Addison’s versification 
of the prophecies which fore¬ 
told the life and actions of 
iEsculapius, from the Meta¬ 
morphoses of Ovid. 

Once, as the sacred infant she sur¬ 
veyed, 

The god was kindled in the raving 
maid* ; 

And thus she uttered her prophetic 
tale, 

“ Hail, great physician of the world ! 
all hail. 

Hail mighty infant, who in years to 
come, 

Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the 
tomb! 

Swift be thy growth, thy triumphs un¬ 
confirmed, 

Make kingdoms thicker, and increase 
mankind. 

Thy daring art shall animate the dead, 
And draw the thunder on thy guilty 
head ; 

Then shalt thou die, but from the dark 
abode 

Shalt rise victorious, and be twice a 
god.” 

Reason at once rejects all 
ideas of prophecy, as being 

* Ergo ubi fatidicos concepit mente 
furores 

Inealuitque Deo, quern clausum pectore 
habebat 

Aspicit infantem. Totique salutifer 
orbi 

Cresce puer dixit, tibi se mortalia 
saepe 

Corpora debebunt: Animas tibi red- 
dere ademptas 

Fas erit. Idque semel Dis lndignantibus 
ausus 

Posse dare hoc iterum flamma prohi- 
bebere avita 

Eque Deo corpus fies exangue ; Deus¬ 
que 

Q,ui rnodo corpus eras, et bis tua fata 
novabis. 

Ovid Met. Lib. 2, lin. 640. 


JESUS CHRIST. 

Mr. Pope’s versification of 
the prophecies which fore¬ 
told the life and actions of 
Jesus Christ, from the pro¬ 
phecies of Isaiah. 

Ye nymphs of Solyma begin the song! 
O thou my voice inspire, 

That touched Isaiah’s hallowed lip* 
with fire, 

Rapt into future times the bard be¬ 
gun— 

A virgin shall conceive, a virgin bear a 
son. 

Swift fly the years, and rise th’ expect¬ 
ed morn— 

O spring to light, auspicious babe be 
born. 

He from thick films shall purge the vis¬ 
ual ray, 

And on the sightless eyeball pcur the 
day : 

’Tis he, th’ obstructed paths of round 
shall clear. 

And bid new music charm th’ unfold¬ 
ing ear ; 

The dumb shall sing, the lame his crutch 
forego, 

And leap exulting like the bounding 
roe. 

u And there was one Anna, 
a prophetess,the daughter of 
Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser. 
She was of a great age, and 
had lived with a husband 
seven years from her virgin¬ 
ity. And she was a widow 
of about four-score and four 
years, which departed not 
from the temple, but served 
God with fastings and pray¬ 
ers night and day. And she 
coming in at that instant, 
gave thanks likewise unto 
the Lord, and spake of him 



^SCULAPIUS-JESUS CHRIST. 


149 


the most childish and foolish 
conceit that could possibly 
cross the mind; a knowledge 
of future events being no 
more possible to the human 
mind, than to fly in the air is 
to the body. We may be told 
sometimes of an extraordi¬ 
nary guess, as we may of a 
wonderful jump; but neither 
flight nor prophecy are at¬ 
tributes of man—and no ra¬ 
tional man will consider the 
pretence to such a faculty, 
in any other light, than as a 
certain evidence of impos¬ 
ture, by whomsoever or in 
what cause soever, ad¬ 
vanced.* 


to all them that looked for 
redemption in Israel, Luke 
ii. 36.” 

This is one of the many 
passages which the Unitari¬ 
an editors of the improved 
version wish to have reject¬ 
ed, assigning as one among 
their several reasons against 
it, that “ though found in all 
manuscripts and versions 
now extant, it was intro¬ 
duced with a view to ele¬ 
vate the crucified Jesus to 
the dignity of the heroes 
and demigods of the heathen 
mythology.”—p. 121. 


The worship of iEsculapius was first established in 
Egypt, the fruitful parent of all varieties of superstition. 
The name is derived from the Oriental languages. Euse¬ 
bius speaks of an Asclepios-, or iEsculapius, an Egyptian, 
and a famous physician. He is well known as the God of 
the art of healing, and his Egyptian or Phoenician origin, 
leads us irresistibly to associate his name and character 
with that of the ancient Therapeuts, or Society of Heal¬ 
ers, established in the vicinity of Alexandria, whose sa¬ 
cred writings Eusebius has ventured to acknowledge, 
were the first types of our four gospels. The miracles of 
healing and of raising the dead, recorded in those scrip¬ 
tures, are exactly such as these superstitious quacks 
would be likely to ascribe to the founder of their fra¬ 
ternity. 


* A far more specific prediction than any that theology can pretend, occurs in 
the Medea of Seneca, which seems in the age of Nero, to have foretold the future 
discovery of America, by Christopher Columbus, an event which occurred not 
till 1400 years after the publication of the prophecy. This it is— 

“ Venient annis ssecula seris, 
tluibus Oceanus vincula rerum. 

I*exet, et ingens pateat tellus 
lethysque novos detegat orbes 
Nec sit terris Ultima Thule.” 


“ The times will come in late years, when ocean may relax the chain of things, 
and a vast continent may open ; the sea may uncover new worlds, and Thule, 
cease to be the last of lands.” 


14* 


150 


JESCULAPIUS. 


u Being honoured as a god in Phoenicia and Egypt, hit 
worship passed into Greece, and was established first a* 
Epidaurus, a city of Peloponnesus, bordering on the sea; 
where probably some colonies first settled: a circumstance 
sufficient to induce the Greeks to give out that this god 
was a native of Greece.”— Bell's Pantheon , p. 27. 

Among the Greeks, it was believed that the god Apollo 
himself had represented iEsculapius as his son by a voice 
from the oracle (Ibid.): and it is a striking coincidence of 
fact, if it be no more than a coincidence, that we find the 
Christian Father, Eusebius, attempting to prove the divin¬ 
ity of Jesus Christ, from an answer given by the same 
oracle; # while the text of the Gospel of St. Matthew 
iii. 17, written certainly much later than those answers, 
runs, “ Lo, a voice from heaven , saying , This is my beloved son , 
in whom I am well pleased .” By the mother side, iEscu- 
lapius was the son of Coronis, who had received the 
embraces of God, but for whom, unfortunately, the wor¬ 
shippers of her son have forgotten to claim the honour 
of perpetual virginity. To conceal her pregnancy from 
her parents, she went to Epidaurus,-and was there de¬ 
livered of a son, whom she exposed upon the Mount of 
Myrtles;! when Aristhenes,! the goatherd,§ in search of 
a goat and a dog missing from his fold, discovered the 
child, whom he would have carried to his home, had he 
not, in approaching to lift him up, perceived his head en¬ 
circled with fiery rays,|| which made him to believe the 
child to be divine. The voice of fame soon published 
the birth of a miraculous infant; upon which the people 
flocked from all quarters to behold this heaven-born 
child.1T 

It was believed that u iEsculapius was so expert in 
medicine, as not only to cure the sick, but even to raise 
the dead.” Ovid says he did this by Hyppolitus (and 
Julius says the same of Tyndarus); that Pluto cited him 
before the tribunal of Jupiter, and complained that his 


* Detn. Evan, quoted, translated and commented on, in the author’s Syntag¬ 
ma, p. 116. 

t Mount of Myrtles —why not Mount of Olives ? 
t Aristhenes —why not Joseph ? 

§ Goatherd —why not Shepherd ? 

II Thus all Christian painters have depicted the infant Jesus. 

' Veiled in flesh, the Godhead, He— 

Hail th’ incarnate Deity ! 

Mild he lays his glory by, 

Born that man no more might die ; 

Born to raise the sons of earth ; 

Born to give them second birth ! 


11 Heaven-horn child. 
Equally applicable to ^scu- 
lapius as to Jesus, is the divine^ 
doggerel annexed, 



AESCULAPIUS. 


151 


empire was considerably diminished, and in danger of be* 
coming desolate, from the cures performed by iEscula- 
pius ; so that Jupiter, in wrath, slew him with a thunder¬ 
bolt. Within a short time after his death, he was deified, 
and received divine honours. His worship was first es¬ 
tablished at Epidaurus, and soon after propagated through¬ 
out all Greece. The cock* and serpent were especially 
consecrated to him, and his divinity was recognized and 
honoured in the last words of the dying Socrates, “ Re¬ 
member that we owe a cock to iEseulapius.” At a time 
when the Romans were infested with the plague, having 
consulted their sacred books, they learned that, in order 
to be delivered from it, they were to go in quest of 
iEseulapius at Epidaurus; accordingly, an embassy was 
appointed of ten senators, at the head of whom was 
Quintus Ogulnius; and the worship of iEsculapius was 
established at Rome a. u. c. 462, that is, Before Christ, 288. 
But the most remarkable coincidence is, that the worship 
of this god continued with scarcely diminished splendour, 
even for several hundred years after the establishment of 
Christianity. We have the best and most rationally at¬ 
tested account of a cure brought about by the influence of 
imagination in connection with his name, as late as the 
year 485 a. d. 

Marinus, a scholar of the philosopher Proclus, a. d. 485, 
in his life of his master, says, “ I might relate very many 
theurgic operations of this blessed man: one, out of innu¬ 
merable, I shall mention; and it is wonderful to hear.— 
Asclipigenia, daughter of Archiades and Plutarcha, and 
wife of Theagenes, to whom we are much indebted, when 
she was yet but a young maiden, and lived with her 
parents, was seized with a grievous distemper, incurable 
by the physicians. All help from the physicians failing, 
as in other cases, so now in this also; her father applied 
to the sheet-anchor, that is, to the philosopher, as his good 
Saviour ,f earnestly entreating him to pray for his daughter, 
whose condition was not unknown to him. He therefore, 

* The serpent is prime agent in the story of human redemption; and the cock 
really bears a very important character in the Gospel, in rebuking Peter for curs¬ 
ing and swearing. 

t The good Saviour, which was the express title of .^Esculapius, is given by 
Eusebius, in the mouth of his fabricated personage, Abgarus, to the no less fabri¬ 
cated Jesus : 

Aiyunog Tojragx'i? Extant]? It]OH OurrrjQi ayvc-Oui aracpartm ev to cvi Ttgonohuon 
£ aioen.—Lib. 1. c. 13, lit. D. Eccl. Hist. “Abgarus, toparch of Edessa, to 
Jesus, the good Saviour, who hath shone forth in Jerusalem—greeting ! 


.ESCULAPIUS. 


152 

taking with him Pericles of Lydia, who was also a phi¬ 
losopher and worthy of that name,* went to the temple of 
jEsculapius, intending to pray for the sick young woman 
to the god; for the city (Athens) was at that time blessed 
in him, and still enjoyed the undemolished temple of The 
Saviour. But while he was praying according to the 
ancient form,f a sudden change appeared in the damsel, 
and she immediately became convalescent ; for The 
Saviour, as being God, easily healed her.” 

With respect to the miracles ascribed to iEsculapius, 
and continuing to be performed for so many ages by the 
efficacy ot faith in his name, and in answer to prayers 
offered up in his temple; the power and influence of ima¬ 
gination, in producing changes in the animal economy to 
an indefinite extent, is well known to physicians; and, 
without intending any injurious imposture, the most be¬ 
nevolent and intelligent medical men at this day avail 
themselves of the patient’s superstition, to aid and second 
the operations of medicine. A strongly excited expecta¬ 
tion of relief will often produce such an improved tone of 
muscular action, and such a more vigorous flow of the 
animal spirits, as will be sufficient to throw off the obstruc¬ 
tions in which the disease originated, and thus effect many 
extraordinary and otherwise unaccountable cures. A med¬ 
ical friend once succeeded in curing a poor man of chronic 
rheumatism, after he had followed the prescriptions of the 
ablest physicians without receiving the least benefit, by 
working upon his imagination to make sure of receiving a 
cure, by taking seven tea-spoonfuls of the decoction of a 
brickbat that should be found in a churchyard, the brickbat 
to be boiled for seven hours, in seven quarts of water; the 
essential conditions of the miracle being that its efficacy 
was not to be doubted; and the whole process to be kept an 
inviolable secret. This prescription he affected to trans¬ 
late out of the spider-leg text of a Greek folio. The cure 
was perfect. The primitive Christians were content never 
to call in question the miracles pretended by their Pagan 

* I preserve so much of the original text as is essential to the proof of the mat¬ 
ter before us:—. 

sirijsi stg to anxXtjnstov TCQOOsvgofisrog to) &sa) vtisq t t/g xa^iroa^g. Kai yaQ 
t]VTV/st thth tj nokig tots y.ou si/sv sti anoQ&ijTov to to SorrrjQog isqov. Ev/o- 
tjs >« uvts Tor aQ/aiOTsQov tqottov, a&Qoa usTu(io?.rj nsqi jy]v xoqijv sspairsTo, xui 
QixriTun't] szaupvrjg sytyrsro. Fsia yaQ o 2u)TtjQ ware &sog tagaro. —Quoted in 
Lardner, vol. 4, p. 410. 

t The ancient form, forsitan; “ Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed 
be thy name ; thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in 
heaven,” &c. 


-ESCULA.PIUS. 


153 


adversaries, so they could get their own similar preten¬ 
sions recognised. Their argument was one that was wel\ 
contrived to evade all possibility of being determined: the 
Pa«*an miracles were wrought by the power of daemons, 
while their’s were to be ascribed to the True God. 

Justin Martyr, in his Apology for the Christian Religion, 
addressed to the emperor Hadrian, seems to seek rather 
an excuse for the Christian miracles, than to considei 
them as resting on any grounds of evidence:—“ As to our 
Jesus curing the lame, and the paralytic, and such as were 
cripples from their birth, this is little more than what you 
say of your iEsculapius.”* 

“ In the performance of their miracles,” says Dr. Con- 
vers Middleton, u the primitive Christians were always 
charged with fraud and imposture by their adversaries. 
Lucian tells us, that whenever any crafty juggler, expert 
in his trade, and who knew how to make a right use of 
things, went over to the Christians, he was sure to grow 
rich immediately, by making a prey of their simplicity ; 
and Celsus represents all the Christian wonder-workers as 
mere vagabonds and common cheats, who rambled about 
to play their tricks at fairs and markets, not in the circles 
of the wiser and better sort, (for among such they never 
ventured to appear), but whenever they observed a set of 
raw young fellows, slaves or fools, there they took care to 
intrude themselves, and to display their arts.”— Free 
Inquiry, p. 144. 

The reader has only to consult the 1st and 2d chapters 
of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and he will see that 
this principle of playing off upon the credulity of the 
weakest and most ignorant of mankind, is expressly 
avowed by the great Apostle of the Gentiles—“ Christ cru¬ 
cified,” to the Jews, “ a stumbling block” as contrary to all 
evidence of fact; u and to the Greeks, foolishness,” as revolt* 
ing to reason. The principal result, however, of this re¬ 
semblance is, the evidence it affords that the terms or 
epithets of u Our Saviour” — the Saviour being God, were 
the usual designations of the god iEsculapius ;f and 
that miracles of healing, and resurrection from the dead, 

* See the Chapter on Justin Martyr, in this Diegesis. 

t Both Bacchus, and Jupiter also, was distinguished by the epithet Our Sav¬ 
iour. Sir John Marsham had a coin of the Thasions on which was the inscrip¬ 
tion FfoaxXtug 2u)Tr)Qoc, of Hercules the Saviour. — Bryant's Annot. vol. 
2, p. 406. 195. The name of Christ, as we have seen ( Definitions , p. 7,) was 
ridiculously common, and extended even to every individual of the Jewish race:—> 

—i;nn Vx'sojbi ’TODS bx 

Touch not my Christs . and do my fortune-tellers no harm. '—Psalm cv. 14. 


154 


HERCULES. 


were the evidence of his divinity, for ages before similai 
pretences were advanced for Jesus of Nazareth. “ Strabo 
informs us, that the temples of AEsculapius were constant¬ 
ly filled with the sick, imploring the help of God ; and 
that they had tables hanging around them, in which all 
the miraculous cures were described. There is a remark¬ 
able fragment of one of these tables still extant, and 
exhibited by Gruter in his collection, as it was found in 
the ruins of iEsculapius’s temple, in the island of the 
Tyber in Rome; which gives an account of two blind men 
restored to sight by ^Esculapius, in the open view, and 
with the loud acclamations of the people acknowledging 
the manifest power of the god.”— Middleton’s Free Inquiry , 
p. 78. Could such a document be produced to authen¬ 
ticate any one of the miracles ascribed to Jesus, what 
would become of the cause of infidelity? 

CHAPTER XXL 

HERCULES-JESUS CHRIST. 

Or Alcides, was the son of God by Alcmena, wife of Am- 
phytrion, king of Thebes, and is said to have been born 
in that city, 1280 years before the Christian era. Her 
cules was pointed out by the ancients as their great ex 
emplar of virtue. It was affirmed by some, that h& 
voluntarily engaged in his great labours. The whole of 
his life appears to have been devoted to the good of man 
kind. “ The writers who treat of his adventures, and of 
the antiquities relating to them,” says Mr. Spence, “have 
generally fallen into a great deal of confusion, so far, that 
I scarcely know any one of them that has perfectly well 
settled which were his twelve labours. To avoid falling 
into the same confusion, one may divide all his adventures 
into three classes. In the first class, I should place such 
as are previous to his twelve celebrated labours; 

“ In the second, those twelve labours themselves, which 
he was obliged to do by the fatality of his birth; 

“And in the third, any supernumerary exploits. 

“ His first exploit was that of strangling two serpents 
sent to destroy him in his cradle. This he seems to have 
performed, according to some accounts of it, when he was 
not above half an hour old. But what is still more extra¬ 
ordinary is, that there are exploits supposed to have been 
performed by Hercules, even before Alcmena brought him 
iiPo the world.” 


HERCULES. 


15j 


Thus far Spence, in his Polymetis , dial. 9, p. 116. 
Adding in a note, “ This, perhaps, is one of the most 
mysterious points in all the mythology of the ancients. 
Though Hercules was born not long before the Trojan 
war, they make him assist the gods in conquering the 
rebel giants ( Virgil’s JEheid , 8, line 298); and some of 
them talk of an oracle or tradition in heaven, that the 
gods could never conquer them, without the assistance of 
a man.” 

Upon which, the orthodox Parkhurst, in his Hebrew 
Lexicon,* * * § asks, with indignation, “ Can any man seriously 
believe, that so excellent a scholar as Mr. Spence was, 
could not easily have accounted for what he represents as 
being so very mysterious 9 Will not 1 Pet. i. 20,f compared 
with Hag. ii. 7,f clear the whole difficulty, only recollect¬ 
ing that Hercules might be the name of several mere men , 
as well as the title of the future Saviour 9 And did not the 
truth here glare so strongly on our author’s eyes, that he 
was afraid to trust his reader with it in the text, and so 
put it into a note for fear it should spoil his jests.” 

u It is well known,” continues Parkhurst, “ that by 
Hercules, in the physical mythology of the heathens, was 
meant the Sun , or solar light , and his twelve famous labours 
have been referred to the sun’s passing through the twelve 
zodiacal signs; and this, perhaps, not without some founda¬ 
tion. But the labours of Hercules seem to have had a 
still higher view, and to have been originally designed as 
emblematic memorials of what the real Son of God and 
Saviour of the world was to do and suffer for our sakes—• 
Nonotv XxTtjQiu 7iurTa xoftiton --— u Bringing all lenitives of our dis¬ 
eases ,” as the Orphic Hymn speaks of Hercules.”§ 

Thus we see that Christian divines, according to their 
cue or drift, either endeavour to conceal or else boast of the 
resemblance between the Christian and Pagan mythology. 
At one time, or with one set of Christian-evidence writers, 
the very idea of naming Christ and Hercules together is 
held as the most frightful impiety ; heaven and ha. are 

* P. 520. 

t Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world , but 
was manifest in these last times for you. 

X And the Desire of all nations shall come. 

§ See Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon, under the word Protectors, from 

the root 11% Strength , or Vigour, p. 520. But what is this whole strain of ar¬ 
gument, but the open and avowed Eclectic Philosophy, and a virtual admission 
that Christianity and Paganism are perfectly synonymous ? 


156 


HERCULES. 


not further asunder: with another set, equally orthodox, 
but driving at a different tact of argument, it is Satan 
himself who hath blinded our eyes, to prevent the light of 
truth shining upon us, if we cannot see that Hercules and 
Jesus Christ are one and the same identical personage; 
that the labours of the one were the miracles of the other; 
and that the most mysterious and abstruse doctrines of 
the New Testament were but the realization of the emblem¬ 
atical types of the ancient Paganism. Son of God, and 
Saviour of the world, were forms of expression with 
which the ear of heathenism was familiar, for ages before 
it was pretended that the son of Jehovah and Mary had a 
better claim to be addressed by those titles, than the son 
of Jupiter and Alcmene. 

There was, however, a consistency in the conduct of the 
worshippers of the earlier claimant, and a conformity of 
their practice to their profession, which we shall look for 
in vain among the adorers of the later aspirant. Hercules 
was expressly and professedly worshipped by the ancient 
Latins, under the name of Divus Fidius; that is, the 
guarantee or protector of faith promised or sworn. They 
had a custom of calling this deity to witness, by a sort of 
oath conceived in these terms—“ Me Dius Fidius!” that is, 
So help me the god Fidius! or Hercules. But with all due 
respect to the high authority I quote, rather than incur 
the censure of the divines of the Hutchirisonian school, of 
resisting the light that glares upon me, I should take the 
original form of the ancient oath to have been u Me J)eus 
Filius /” the filling up of which formulary, with the words 
ita adjuvet , make the sense complete, So help me God the 
Son!” The form of oath used in our universities at this 
day is, “ Ita me JJeus adjuvet et sancta ejus evangelia !”— 
So help me God and his holy Gospels! The turning the word 
filius into Fidius , and inventing a god, or an epitheton of 
that name, seems like a struggle to evade the evident sense, 
especially since we know that, in the hurried and gabbling 
way in which the ancient oath was administered, the 
whole sentence was pronounced but as two words, Medius 
Fidius; and certainly it would be ridiculous to make a 
God, or the epithet of a God, of the word Medius: and 
why might not Hercules be honoured with the title of 
God the son, to distinguish him from Jupiter, or God the 
Father, as by his human nature standing in a nearer 
relation to mankind than the paternal deity, and the fitter 
:o be appealed to as a mediator in human transactions; 


HERCULES. 


157 


especially seeing that he was known and recognized under 
the exactly similar designation of the Son of God , and the 
Saviour of the world? 

It is, indeed, one of the most curious extravagancies t f 
all that is extravagant in Christian faith and practice, that 
the custom of administering oaths should be retained in 
Christian courts of judicature, in spite of the express and 
reiterated prohibitions of swearing contained by luckless 
oversight in the very book on which the oath is taken. 
Our Judge Blackstone, well aware how ill the Christian 
text would serve his purpose, passes over the words of 
Jesus Christ, “ I say unto you , swear not at all” (Matt. v. 
34); and those of his holy Apostle St. James, u But above 
ah. things, my brethren , swear not” (James v. 12); and quotes 
the text of the Pagan, Cicero :— 

“ Who denies that these opinions are useful, when he 
observes how many things are certified upon oath ; of 
what safety are the religious obligations of covenants, 
how many persons are restrained from crime by the fear 
of divine punishment, and how holy is the society of citi¬ 
zenship, from the belief of the presence of the immortal 
gods, as well with the judges as with the witnesses?”* 

u It has indeed been remarked by the most eminent 
writers of the Roman history, that the superstition of that 
people had a great influence in keeping them in subordi¬ 
nation and allegiance. It is more particularly observed, 
that in no other nation was the solemn obligation of an 
oath treated with such respect, and fulfilled with such a 
religious circumspection, and such an inviolable fidelity.” 
Such is the substance of a note of a Christian translator 
of Mosheim, in opposition to a remark of his text, that the 
Roman superstition was defective in this point.—(Cent. 4, 
part 1.) 

A note to similar effect occurs in the Christian Evan- 
son’s work on the Dissonance of the four Gospels, p. 81. 
u I was many years ago assured by an intimate friend, 
and an intelligent worthy man, who had traded largely 
both in the northern parts of Africa and in many different 
countries of Europe, that he was never once deceived in 
confiding in the honour and integrity of a Mahomedan; 
but that through the perfidy and dishonesty of some of 

* Utiles esse opiniones has, quis negat, cum intelligat quarn multa firmentur 
jurejurando ; quantae salutis sint foederutn religiones, quarn multos divini supplied 
inetus a scelere revocarit, quarnque sancta sit societas civiura inter ipsos, Diis nn- 
mortalibus interpositis turn judicibus turn testibus.— De Legibus , lib. 2, 7. 

15 


158 


ADONIS. 


those he dealt with, he had been defrauded and injured in 
every nation of professed Christians.”* 

The gaoler of the prison in which 1 am at the time of 
writing this, in the seventh month of an unjust captivity 
incurred by the conscientious and honourable maintenance 
of my sincere convictions, informs me, that during his own 
long residence in Malta, and constant course of commercial 
transactions with the professors of the Mohamedan creed, 
he never heard of an unpaid debt, or a violated obligation; 
and that it is an usual mode of traffic in the market-towns 
throughout Turkey, for the farmers and huxters to leave 
their fowls, eggs and butter, &c. in baskets, with the prices 
affixed, and to return in the evening in perfect security of 
finding the article as they left it, or the exact price de¬ 
posited in tne place of just so much of it as had found a 
purchaser. 

“ Were a wise man,” says Bishop Kidder, “ to choose 
his religion oy the lives ot* those who profess it, perhaps 
Cnristianity would be the last religion he would choose.” 
Christianity, then, has no pretence to evidence on the 
score of any moral effects it has produced in the world. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

ADONIS-JESUS CHRIST. 

The Jews had a superstition of not uttering the incom¬ 
municable name of God, nr.-—that is, Yahou , or Jackhou; 
or, as it frequently occurs, in one syllable, r*—Jao, or 
Jack ;f which, with more reverence than reason, is pro¬ 
nounced Jah! as the tetragrammaton, or word of four 
letters, which at this day adorns our Christian temples is 
called Jehovah. 

From this divine name rr, says Parkhurst, the ancient 
Greeks had their in their invocations of the gods, more 

* There are no Quakers among them ; and there can be no villany where 
Quakers are not. 

f The nearest approach to the exact pronunciation of this sacred word will 
be produced by suspending the action of all the organs of articulation, and making 
only that convulsive heave of the larynx, by which the bronchal vessels discharge 
the accumulated phlegm; it is enunciated with the most eloquent propriety in the 
act of vomiting, and perhaps on this account has been called the unutterable 
name.—Consult Rabbi Ren Herschel, and his beard ! The God Jehovah, 
the most hideous of the whole mythology, was well known to the Gentiles; 
he was the Jonn of the ancient Tuscans, and Latinized into the Janus of the 
Romans. 



ADONIS. 


159 


particularly of the god Apollo, i. e. The Light. And hence 
these two letters, forming the name Jah, written after the 
Oriental manner, from right to left, were inscribed over 
the great door of the temple of Apollo at Delphi. 

n is several times joined with the name nr", which 
seems to indicate that they are distinct names for the 
same deity, and not the one the mere abbreviation of 
the other. The rays of light or glory within a circle or 
ring of which the tetragrammaton, or four-lettered word, 
is exhibited in our Christian temples, are a demonstration 
that the same deity is intended by the Christian Jehovah 
as by the Pagan Jah (that is, Apollo), whose name of 
two letters was in like manner encircled with rays of 
glory. 

The Pagans, indeed, seem more rigidly to have adhered 
to the text or injunctions of those Syrio-Phcenician odes 
which have been consecrated by Christian piety, under the 
name of the Psalms of David, and which formed a material 
part of their idolatrous liturgies, than their Christian pla¬ 
giarists who have retained the use of them in a never- 
interrupted succession from their times. 

We read in the original, the hundred times re¬ 
peated commands, m iV?n—Ellell-lu-jah ! praise ye Jack f 
rr nx td*u run— Behold! bless ye Jack! 

-pa ’j vjs 1 ? lot? m nun;n 333 1 ? lbo mt? rro? m? 

—non Dbijft "3 mrr o'sx 

Sing ye to the gods! Chant ye his name / Exalt him who rideth 
in the heavens , by his name Jack , and leap for joy before his 
face! For the Lord hath a long nose , and his mercy endureth for 
ever! 

It is admitted, however, on all hands, that the proper 
pronunciation of the tetragrammaton which we call ‘Je¬ 
hovah, and its synonyme Jah, is entirely lost. Nor can it 
be denied, that the Hebrew points ordinarily annexed to 
the consonants of those words, are not the natural points 
belonging thereto, nor indicative of pronunciation; but are 
the vowel points belonging to the words Adonai and Elo- 
him,—to warn the reader, that instead of the word Te- 
iiovah, which the Jews were forbidden to pronounce, and 
the pronunciation of which had been long unknown to 
them, they are always to read Adonai, or Adonis.* 

* See the Oxford Encyclopedia, under the head Adonists; and my own fin 
Aer investigations of this curious subject, in my Syntagma of the Evidences of 
the Christian Religion, published during the eadier months of my still continuing 


160 


ADONIS. 


Hence we fine*, that frequently where the common 
printed copies read many of Dr. Kennicott’s codices 
have rrrr. And hence, says Dr. Parkhurst, whose ortho¬ 
doxy of Christian faith admits not a suspicion—hence the 
idol Adonis had his name.* 

The reader will, l hope, do himself the justice to observe, 
that throughout this Diegesis, no merely fanciful or con¬ 
jectural interpretations are admitted, and no new lights 
struck out from ingenious etymologies: he is here pre¬ 
sented with the calm dispassionate evidence of fact, and 
when those facts are most pregnant of conclusions adverse 
to Christianity, they are invariably adduced in the words 
and on the authority of Christians themselves, whose dis¬ 
interestedness, at least, in yielding admissions of this 
character, is no more to be questioned, than their learning 
and piejy to be surpassed. 

The great source of difficulty and mistake in tracing the 
identity of the parent figment through the multifarious 
forms of the ancient idolatry, seems to arise from the 
change of epithets and names, while yet it is but one and 
the same deity and demi-god who is meant under a hun¬ 
dred designations. Thus, the names under which the 
Sun has been the real and only intended object of divine 
worship, have been as various and as many as the nations 
of the earth on which his light has shone. And as va¬ 
rious are the allegories and fictions of his passing through 
the zodiacal sign of the Virgin, which, of course, would 
remain a virgin still; his descending into the lower parts 
of the earth; his rising again from the dead; his ascend¬ 
ing into heaven, his opening the kingdom of heaven to 
all believers; his casting his bright beams of light through 
twelve months, or Apostles, one of whom (February—• 
Judas) lost a day, and by transgression (or skipping over) 
“/eM, that he might go to his own place,” (Acts i. 25); u his 
preaching the acceptable year of the Lord” (Luke iv. 9). Bv 
all which metaphorical personifications, were typified the 
natural history or circumstances observable in the Sun’s 
progress through the twelve months which constitute the 
natural year. 

The Jews in vain endeavour to disguise the fact, that 
they also were Sun worshippers. We find, from their own 
sacred books, that their Solomon, after having built a 

unjust imprisonment, for the conscientious exposure of the errors and ignorance on 
which that religion is founded, p. 96. 

* Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon, under the head 3. 


ADONIS. 


161 


temple to Jehovah, <c did build also an high place for w t? 
Chemosh (that is, the Sun), the abomination of Moab , in the 
hill that is before Jerusalem ,” (1 Kings, xi. 1) ; and so late 
as to the reign of Josiah, successive kings of Judah ‘‘had 
dedicated horses to the Sun ; and the chariots of the Sun were 
at the entering in of the house of the Lord”—2 Kings, xxii. 11 

The prophet Malachi expressly speaks of Christ , under 
the same unaltered name of Chemosh, the abomination 
of the Moabites—npiy wvu ,—Chapter iii, verse 4, or 
iv. 2. Which being, by our evangelical reformers, very 
conveniently translated the Sun of Righteousness ,t of course 
could refer to nothing else than Jesus Christ, and so 
conceals the idolatry, while it conveys the piety. 

The same deity, however, under his name Adonis, 
without any change but that of the various pronouns, 
suffices to indicate my Adon, our Adon, &c. is the undis¬ 
guised idol who is addressed innumerable times through¬ 
out the book of Psalms, under that name, and to whose 
honour, in common with that of Jehovah, they were com¬ 
posed and dedicated. The 110th Psalm, of which the 
first verse rendered into English, is, “ The Lord said unto 
my Lord , Sit thou at my right hand , until I make thine ene¬ 
mies thy footstool should have been rendered, “ Yahou 
said unto Adonis .” The two idols were worshipped in the 
same house of the Lord, which was at Jerusalem : Yahou, 
or Jack, sat on the lid of a box, ridiculously called the 
ilasterion, or mercy-seat; while Adonis seems to have occu¬ 
pied the vestibule, or entering-in of the house of the Lord. 
The rest of the Psalm is a dialogue, in which Jao, or Jack , 
proposes terms of alliance between himself and Adonis, 
and engages to join him in the slaughter of their enemies 
The preference of the Jews for Adonis, who was distin¬ 
guished for his personal beauty, above the cloven footed 
and long-nosed Jehovah J has induced them to this day, 
not only to read the name Adon, wherever it occurs, but 
entirely to banish the recollection of Jao altogether. 
They substitute the name Adon in every instance where 
our translators have put Jehovah, or the Lord ; so that in 
the reading of those to whom these lively oracles were 
: ybn 1 ? Din *px rvwx m’d , l ? 210 mix 1 ? rorr dxj * 

t The Hebrew has no adjectives : Sun of Righteousness is their idiom for the 
Righteous Sun. 

t See the plate of him in Parkhurst, and his convincing arguments in proof 
that the beast with four faces and four wings, standing like a cock upon a hen 
roost, on one leg, “ must be referred to Jehovah only,” under the head 
340—4. 


15 * 


162 


ADONIS. 


committed, it is not Jehovah, but the Phoenician deity 
Adonis , who is the God of the Old Testament. 

Jehovah then, had more than cause enough for jealousy 
against the encroachments of Adonis, and in one most 
striking instance, the worship of this idol, under his name 
Tammuz, is denounced as an atrocious abomination. 
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord's house , 
which was towards the north , and behold there sat women weeping 
for Tammuz. —(Ezekiel viii. 14.) 

Here Jerome interprets non Tammuz, by Adonis , who he 
observes, is in Hebrew and Syriac, called Adonis. 

“ I find myself obliged, (says the pious author of the 
Greek and Hebrew Lexicons,) to refer Tammuz, as v/ell 
as the Greek and Roman Hercules , to that class of idols, 
which was originally designed to represent the promised 
Saviour, the Desire of all nations. His other name, Ado¬ 
nis, is almost the very Hebrew unx or our Lord , a well- 
known title of Christ.” 

Such are the words of the ingenuous, most learned, and 
orthodox Parkhurst, who proceeds to exhibit this resem¬ 
blance of Adonis and Christ, by subjoining, with acknow¬ 
ledgements to his authorities Spearman and Godwyn , a 
passage from Julius Firmicius , which in my earlier writings 
l was content to quote, as he had done, at second-hand. 
The retirement and leisure however which my Christian 
persecutors have forced upon me, and the attentions of 
my unbelieving friends, have enabled me to study the very 
rare and curious original itself. It is an oration or address 
of Julius Firmicius delivered to the Emperors Constans 
and Constantius; the object of which was to induce those 
pious princes to seize the property of their Pagan subjects, 
and apply it to Christian uses—than which, of course, no¬ 
thing could have been more orthodox. After forty- 
five pages of abuse heaped on the ancient Pagans for 
their egregious forms of idolatry, in which by a most 
curious mystical interpretation of their ceremonies, he 
discovers Christ to have been represented by them all,— 
he adds, u * Let us propose another symbol, that by an 
effort of cogitation, their wickedness may be revealed, of 
which we must relate the whole process in order that it 
may be manifest to all, that the law of the divine appoint- 

* Aliud etiam symbolum proponamus, ut conamine cogitationis, scelera 
revelentur; cujus totus ordo dicendus est, ut apud omnes constet divinae dis¬ 
positions legem, perversa Diaboli irnitatione corruptam. Nocte quadam simula¬ 
crum in lectica supinum ponitur, et per numeros digestis fletibus plaugitu. 


ADONIS. 


163 


ment hath been corrupted by the devil’s perverse imita¬ 
tion. On a certain night (while the ceremony of the 
Mania , or religious rites in honour of Adonis lasted) an 
image was laid out upon a bed, and bewailed in doleful 
ditties. After they had satiated themselves with fictitious 
lamentations, light was brought in ; then the mouths of 
all the mourners were anointed by the priest, upon which 
the priest, with a gentle murmur, whispered— 

Trust ye, saints, your God restored, 

Trust ye, in your risen Lord ; 

For the pains which he endured 
Our salvation have procured. 

“ Upon which their sorrow was turned into joy, and the 
image was taken, as it were out of its sepulchre.” These 
latter words, though their sense is evidently implied, have 
no direct authority in the original, but seem to be a scho¬ 
lium of Mr. Spearman. Firmicius, in his tide of eloquence, 
leaves his conclusion elliptical ; and breaks away into in¬ 
dignant objurgation of the priest who officiated in those 
heathen mysteries, which, he admitted, resembled the 
Christian sacrament in honour of the death and resurrec¬ 
tion of Jesus Christ, so closely, that there was really no 
difference between them, except* that no sufficient proof 
had been given to the world of the resurrection of Adonis, 
and no divine oracle had borne witness to his resurrec¬ 
tion, nor had he shown himself alive after his death to 
those who were concerned to have assurance of the fact, 
that they might believe. The divine oracle (be it ob¬ 
served,) which had borne witness to the resurrection of 
Christ, but which it seems had vouchsafed no such 
honourable testimony to the resurrection of Adonis, was 
none other than the answer of the God Apollo, at Delphos ; 
which this author derives from Porphyry’s books on the 
Philosophy of Oracles; and which Eusebius has conde¬ 
scended to quote, as furnishing one of the most convincing 

Deinde cum se ficta lamcntatione satiaverint, lumen infertur. Tunc a Sacerdote 
omnium qui flebant, fauces unguntur, quibus perunctis, sacerdos lento murmure 
susurrat: 

OaQQtiTe uvGTCtt th dts (rtomnpera 
Earai yay tyt/ir ex no row a oitijqkx. 

Literally, “ Trust ye communicants the God having been saved, there shall be to 
us out of pains, salvation.” Godwyn, who seems not to have discovered the 
metre of the original, renders it, “ Trust ye in God, for out of pains , salva¬ 
tion is come unto us.” 

* Dei tui mors nota est, vita non comparet ; nec de resurrectione ejus divinum 
aliquando respondit oraculum, nec horninibus se post mortem ut sibi crederetur, 
ostendit, nulla hujus operis documenta promisit, nec se hoc facturum esse pra ;o- 
dentibus monstravit exemplis.— De Errore prof Relig. p. 45. 


164 


ADONIS. 


proofs that could be adduced from the admission of an ad 
versary of the resurrection of Christ.* 

“But thou at least,” says Eusebius, “listen to thine 
own Gods, to thy oracular deities themselves, who have 
borne witness, and ascribed to our Saviour, not impos¬ 
ture, but piety and wisdom, and ascent into heaven.” 
Quoted in the authors Syntagma , p. 116. This was vastly 
obliging and liberal of the God Apollo ; only, it happens 
awkwardly enough, that the whole work, (consisting of 
several books) ascribed to Porphyry, in which this and 
other admissions equally honourable to the evidences of 
the Christian religion, are made, was not written by Por¬ 
phyry, but is altogether the pious forgery of Christian 
hands ; who have kindly fathered the great philosopher 
with admissions, which as he would certainly never have 
made them himself, they have very charitably made for 
him. 

But not alone the very name Adon, or Adonai, nor the 
particular manner in which that God was worshipped, oc¬ 
curring as frequently as the name Jehovah, and by the 
Jews themselves constantly maintained to be the sense of 
that name, and proper to be used rather than, and instead 
of it; but the distinctive attributes of Adonis, the pecu¬ 
liarly characteristical epithets and designations by which 
that idol was identified from all others, prove beyond the 
possibility of doubt, that the Jews were worshippers of 
the self-same Adonis , adored by their Phoenician neigh¬ 
bours. Adonis was distinguished for his personal beauty. 
We find entire odes or psalms in praise of his beauty,f 
and his characteristic epithet of The Beauty of Holi¬ 
ness used interchangeably, instead of his name, “//e 
appointed singers unto the Lord, and that should praise 
The Beauty of Holiness.” —2 Chron. xx. 21. 

“ The Devil,” says Firmicius, “has his Christs,” J of 
which he affects not to deny that this Adonis was one. 
But one of the strongest sensible proofs of the difference 
between the false Christs and the true one, which this 

* Firmicius, quotes this Christian forgery under the title IIbqi rr t q evXoyiwv 
(filoooyiuc .— Eusebius, avails himself of it, as Iltoi Xoyiwv ipiyoootptag .—• 
Macknight. and Doddridge strove mightily to enlist it into the service of the Church 
Militant; but it would not do. 

o '?pb d nbx id bp yn'inzwD jn pxm cik rva^t 

Thou art handsome, beyond the sons of Adam, love is diffused in thy lips, fo* 
the sake of which, God is enamoured of thee for ever.—Psalm 45. 

t Ii^het ergo Diabolus Christos suos, p. 46. 


ADONIS. 165 

author could aduuce, was, that the ointment with which 
the Pagan priests anointed the lips of the mystics, or 
initiated in the Adonia , or sacrament of our Lord Adonis, 
was wholly different from the unguentum immortelle , which 
God the Father gave to his only Son,* and which the 
Son bestows on all those who believe in the divine majes¬ 
ty of his name : for Christ’s ointment, he would have us to 
know, is “ of an immortal composition, and mixed up with 
the spiritual scents of paints, of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, 
out of ivory palaceswhereas the Pagan ointment was, 
I dare say, little better than cart-grease.—Nobody need 
know any more about Vir. Clarus Julius Firmicius Ma- 
ternus. 

The Adonia were solemn feasts in honour of Venus, 
and in memory of her beloved son, Adonis. Venus, as 
sprung from the sea, .Mire, could not be more honourably 
distinguished than by her epithet Maria; Adonai is lit¬ 
erally Our Lord : so that these solemn feasts, without any 
change or substitution of names, were unquestionably 
celebrated to the honour of Mary and her son, Our 
Lord ; to whomsoever else those names may have in later 
ages been applied. They were observed by the Greeks, 
Phoenicians, Lycians, Syrians, Egyptians, and indeed by 
almost all the nations of the then known world. It is 
universally agreed, that it is to these ceremonies that 
the Jewish God refers in the 8th chapter of Ezekiel, 
where they are denounced as an abomination ; we find 
by inference, an honourable apology for the Jewish 
nation, who, as a people, have through so many ages, 
refused to embrace a religion, which in so many par¬ 
ticulars, and even in the continuance of the same names, 
has lost all possibility of being distinguished in their 
apprehension from u the abomination of the Sidonians .” The 
festival of the Adonia was still observed at Alexandria , the 
cradle of the Christian religion, in the time of St. Cyrd ; 
and at that Antioch, where the disciples were first called 
Christians, (Acts xi. 26,) even as late as the time of 
the emperor Julian, commonly called the Apostate; 
“ whose arrival there during the solemnity was taken for 
an ill omen. ”— BelVs Pantheon. This is surely a curious 
admission of our Christian mythologists. Let the reader 
ask himself, and answer as he may the questions emer- 

* Aliud est unguentum quod Deus pater unico tradidit filio, &c. p. 46.—See 
in its place, under the name Christ, what serious though slippery, arguments the 
Fatners build on ointment or pomatum. 


IG6 


ADONIS. 


gent from this state of the Chistian evidences—1. What 
argument can be drawn from the wonderful propagation 
of the Gospel, when in the city where it was at first most 
successfully preached, and where the disciples were first 
called Christians, it had not, even in the fourth century, 
abolished the Pagan and idolatrous festival of the 
Adonia ?—2. And wherefore should the arrival of the 
emperor, Julian (a known apostate from the Christian 
religion, and a zealous patron of Paganism), during the 
celebration of the Adonia, have been considered as an ill 
omen, but that the Adonia had come to be considered as 
entirely a Christian festival ?—3. And at what time, or 
whether ever, the festival of the Adonia was distinctly 
abolished, and that of the Christian Easter established 
upon its overthrow ? 

For the solution of these most important inquiries, we 
hold up the light of the admissions of ecclesiastical his¬ 
torians. It must ever be borne in mind, that the Chris¬ 
tians of the second, third, and fourth centuries indus¬ 
triously laboured to give their religion the nearest possible 
resemblance to the ancient Paganism; and confessedly 
adopted the liturgies, rites, ceremonies, and terms of hea¬ 
thenism ; making it their boast that the Pagan religion, 
properly explained, really was nothing else than Christianity; 
that the best and wisest of its professors in all ages had 
been Christians all along; that Christianity was but a name 
more recently acquired to a religion which had previously 
existed, and had been known to the Greek philosophers, 
to Plato, Socrates, and Heraclitus ; and that u if the 
writings of Cicero had been read as they ought to have 
been, there would have been no occasion for the Christian 
Scriptures.” Nor did some of them, who maintained that 
Jesus Christ had a real existence, hesitate to ascribe to 
him a work in which “ he himself expressly declared that 
he was in no way opposed to the worship of the gods and 
goddesses ;* while our most orthodox Christian divines, 
the best learned in ecclesiastical antiquity, and most 
entirely persuaded of the truth of the Christian religion, 
unable to resist or to conflict with the constraining demon¬ 
stration of the data that prove the absolute sameness and 
identity of Paganism and Christianity ; and unable to 
point out so much as one single idea or notion, of which 
they could show that it was peculiar to Christianity, or 

*See the chapter of admissions in this Diegesis ; and Jones on the Canon 
vol. 1. p. 12. 


MYSTICAL SACRIFICE OF THE PHOENICIANS. 167 

that Christianity had it, and Paganism had it not; have 
invented the apology of an hypothesis ; that the Pagan 
religion, like the Jewish dispensation, was typical; and that 
Hercules, Adonis, &e. were all of them types and forerun¬ 
ners of the true and real Hercules, Adonis, &c. our Lord 
and Saviour Jesus Christ. Nothing is more easily con¬ 
ceivable, than that the priests and devotees of any one 
of the innumerable forms of absurdity which superstition 
might from time to time assume, should decry all others, 
and pretend that their’s alone was divine: nothing is so 
hard to be conceived, as that a God of infinite wisdom and 
truth should be the author of a religion so little superior, 
and so closely resembling the devices of juggling priests 
and self-interested impostors, that it should not be in the 
power of any man on earth, who would judge impartially, 
to discover in what the superiority consists ; or that there 
was really any difference at all between them. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE MYSTICAL SACRIFICE OF THE PHOENICIANS. 

u It was an established custom among the ancient Phoeni¬ 
cians, on any calamitous or dangerous emergency, for the 
ruler of the state to offer up, in prevention of the general 
ruin, the most dearly-beloved of his children, as a ransom 
to divert the divine vengeance. They who were devoted 
for this purpose, were offered mystically , in consequence of 
an example which had been set this people by the God 
Kronus, who, in a time of distress, offered up his only son 
to his father 0uranus. The mystical sacrifice of the 
Phoenicians had these requisites : 1st. That a prince was 
to offer it; 2nd. That his only son was to be the victim ; 
3rd. That he was to make this grand sacrifice invested with 
the emblems of royalty.”— Bryant's Observations on Ancient 
History , quoted in Archbishop JVIagee's Work on the Atone¬ 
ment , vol. 1, p. 388. This is the Archbishop of Dublin, 
whose spirit, temper, and conduct are so strikingly in 
harmony with those he ascribes to a God delighting in 
blood and bloody sacrifices, famous for his inexorable 
severity in the government of his diocese, and his cruel 
treatment of the inferior clergy ; nor less distinguished for 


168 


CHRISHNA. 


the convenient flexibility of his own orthodoxy. He is 
Known in private to laugh at the folly of his own doc¬ 
trines, as in public he ventured to declare, that though he 
believed in the Articles of the Church of England collec¬ 
tively, he did not believe in them separately. 

Here is, in fact, a first draft of the whole Christian 
scheme, existing in a country neighbouring on Judea,many 
hundreds of years before it became moulded into its present 
shape. 

Jesus Christ, the son of a king, is offered by God to 
himself, to avert his own vengeance, and this is repeatedly 
called the mystery of the Gospel , (Col. i. 26). Had the Gos¬ 
pel been matter of fact, there could have been no mystery 
in it. 

“And they put on him a scarlet robe.” Matt, xxvii. 28 

“ And they clothed him with purple.” Mark xv. 17. 

“And arrayed him in a gorgeous robe.” Luke xxiii. 11. 

“And they put on him a purple robe.” John xix. 2. 

And set up over his head, his accusation, written— 

“This is Jesus, the King of the 

Jews.” Matt, xxvii. 37 

“The King of the Jews.” Mark xv. 26. 

“This is the King of the Jews.” Luke xxiii. 38. 

“Jesus of Nazareth, the King 

of the Jews.” * John xix. 19. 

Such a mockery of a dying malefactor, never, in any 
other instance, disgraced the judicial administration of a 
Roman magistrate. 

The addition of the important words, Jesus of Nazareth , 
in the later Gospel of St. John, strongly indicates the 
intention of making the circumstances of a previously 
existing Gospel apply to a newly-invented name for the 
old hero. 




CHAPTER XXIV. 

CHRISHNA. 

“That the name of Chrishna, and the general out¬ 
line of his story,” says the pious and learned Sir William 
Jones, “ were long anterior to the birth of our Saviour, an<! 


CHRISTINA. 


169 


probably to the time of Homer, we know very certainly .”— 
Asiatic Researches , vol. l,p. 259. 

“ In the Sanscrit Dictionary, compiled more than two 
thousand years ago, we have the whole story of the incar¬ 
nate deity born of a virgin, and miraculously escaping in 
his infanev from the reigning tyrant of his country.”—• 
Ibid. pp. 259, 260. 267. 272, 273. 

“ I am persuaded,” continues this great author, than 
whom higher authority cannot be adduced—“ l am persua¬ 
ded, that a connection existed between the old idolatrous 
nations of Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before the 
time of Moses.”— Ibid. p. 259. 

“Very respectable natives have assured me, that one 
or two missionaries have been absurd enough in their 
zeal for the conversion of the Gentiles, to urge, that the 
Hindus were even now almost Christians ; because their 
Brahma, Vishnou and Mahesa, were no other than the 
Christian Trinity : a sentence, in which we can only doubt 
whether folly, ignorance, or impiety, predominates. The 
Indian triad, and that of Plato, which he calls the Supreme 
Good , the Reason , and the Soul, are infinitely removed 
from the holiness and sublimity of the doctrine which 
pious Christians have deduced from the texts in the Gos¬ 
pel.” -Ibid. p. 272. 

The celebrated poem Bhagavat, contains a prolix ac¬ 
count of the life of Chrishna :—“Chrishna, the incar¬ 
nate deity of the Sanscrit romance, continues to this 
hour the darling god of the Indian women. The sect of 
Hindus, who adore him with enthusiastic and almost 
exclusive devotion, have broached a doctrine which they 
maintain with eagerness, that he was distinct from all the 
avatars (or prophets), who had only a portion of his 
divinity, whereas Chrishna Was the person of Vishnou 
(God) himself in a human form.”*— Ibid. p. 260. 

Chrishna was believed to have been born from the left 
intercostal rib of a virgin of the royal line of Devaci. 
“ He passed a life of a most extraordinary and incom¬ 
prehensible nature. His birth was concealed, through 
jear of the tyrant Cansa, to whom it had been predicted 
that one born at that time, in that family, would destroy 
him.”— Ibid. p. 259. 

“ He was fostered, therefore, in Mat’hura, by an honest 


* “ For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.”—2 Colo*> 
sians, 9 




16 


170 


CHRISHNA. 


herdsman, surnamed Ananda, or the Happy, and hia 
amiable wife, Yasoda .”—Asiatic Researches , vol. 1, p. 260. 

“ Chrishna, when a boy, slew the terrible serpent Cali- 
ya, with a number of serpents and monsters. He passed 
his youth in playing* with a party of milk-maids; and at 
the age of seven years, lie held up a mountain on the tip 
of his little finger. He saved multitudes, partly by his 
arms, and partly by his miraculous powers. He raised 
the dead, by descending for that purpose to the lowest re¬ 
gions. He was the meekest and best-tempered of beings. 
He washed the feet of the Brahmins, and preached very 
nobly indeed, and sublimely, but always in their favour 
He was pure and chaste in reality, but exhibited an ap¬ 
pearance of excessive libertinism; and had wives or mis¬ 
tresses too numerous to be counted. Lastly, he was be¬ 
nevolent and tender, yet fermented and conducted a ter¬ 
rible war.”— Ibid. p. 273. 

“The adamantine pillars of our faith cannot be shaken 
by an investigation of heathen mythology. I, who cannot 
help believing the divinity of the Messiah, from the undis¬ 
puted antiquity, and manifest completion of many prophe¬ 
cies, &c. am obliged, of course , to believe the sanctity of 
the venerable books to which that sacred person refers.” 
— Ibid. p. 233. 

The above extracts are taken literally from the 1st vol¬ 
ume of the Asiatic Researches, chapter 9th, on the Gods 
of Greece, Italy, and India, written in 1784, ano since re¬ 
vised by the president, Sir William Jones. 

I have thought it supremely important to p/esent the 
text of this great author, and leave the reader \o draw his 
own conclusion. Higher authority could not be quoted. 
One better acquainted with the Hindostanee language,and 
with the documents and evidence from which such infor¬ 
mation could be acquired, could hardly be conceived to 
exist; and certainly, never was any man further from the 
intention of supplying arms to infidelity. The unques¬ 
tionable orthodoxy of Sir William Jones" must, therefore, 
give to admissions surrendered by him, the utmost degree 
of cogency; while his unequalled and unrivalled learning 
stands as a tower of strength, to render our position im¬ 
pregnable, upon the lines to which he has authorized our 
advance, and recognized our right. 

Nothing in the whole compass of ecclesiastical history 
has so perplexed and distressed the modern advocates of 
Christianity, as these surrenders made by th-air own best 


CHRISHNA. 


171 

and ablest champion, to the cause of infidelity. Our evan¬ 
gelical polemics, indeed, lose all temper upon hearing but 
an allusion to this most unluckily discovered prototype of 
their Jewish deity. No language of insolence against 
those who point out the resemblance, is too outrageous— 
no shift or sophistication to evade or conceal it, too pitiful. 

The sun is not more dissimilar to the moon, say our 
Unitarian divines, than is Chrishna to Christ.* No man in 
his senses, say our evangelicals, could believe that the 
two personages were identical. Our Methodists f meanly 
and pitifully alter the spelling of the name from the orig¬ 
inal orthography, which rests on the high authority of Sir 
William Jones, and invariably print it as Krishnu , or Krish¬ 
na, to screen the resemblance from the eye’s observance; 
while they accuse their opponents of spelling it as they 
do (correctly), for the contrary purpose of making the 
resemblance more striking. 


dr. bentley’s theory. 

Dr. Bent.ey, as a dernier resource, flies to astrology — 
source inexhaustible of all that is wild in conjecture, and 
delusive in argumentation, to supply his drowning hypo¬ 
thesis with a straw to swim un. “ My attention,” says he, 
1 was first drawn to this subject, by finding that a great 
many Hindu festivals marked in the calendar, had every 
appearance of being modern; for they agreed with the 
modern astronomy only, and not with the ancient. I ob¬ 
served also several passages in the Geeta having a refer¬ 
ence to the new order of things. I was, therefore, indu¬ 
ced to make particular inquiries about the time of Krishna , 
who, I was satisfied, was not near so ancient as pretended.! 
In these inquiries, I was told the usual story, that Krishna 
lived a great many ages ago; that he was contemporary 
with Yudheshthira; that Garga, the astronomer, was hia 
priest; and that Garga was present at his birth, and de- 

* Rev. Mr. Beard’s Third Letter to the Author, p. 87. 

f Rev. Dr. John Pye Smith, in Answer to the Author, p. 54. A truly sublime 
specimen of evangelical malignity. This holy Parthian throws his stone, and pro¬ 
tects himself under pretence of treating his adversary with contempt ! 

t He was satisfied, it seems, before he began to inquire—a pretty good security 
to ensure that the result of his inquiry would be satisfactory. He who is in pos¬ 
session of what he pretends to seek for, before he commences his search, will bo 
sure to know when a.id where to find it 



172 


CHRISHNA. 


termined the position of the planets at that moment, 
which position was still preserved in some books to be 
found among the astronomers : besides which, there was 
mention made of his birth in the Harivansa, and other 
Puranas. These I examined, but found they were insuffi¬ 
cient to point out the time ;* I therefore directed my atten¬ 
tion towards obtaining the Janampatra of Krishna, con¬ 
taining the positions of the planets at his birth, which at 
length I was fortunate to meet with ;f from which it ap¬ 
pears that Chrishna was born on the 23d of the moon 
Sravana.” The writer then gives the position of the 
planets at the birth of Krishna, and states that “ they 
place the time of the fiction in the year a. d. 600, on the 
7th of August, at midnight.”— Bentley on Ancient and Mod¬ 
ern Hindu Astronomy , quoted by Mr. Beard, in his 3rd Let¬ 
ter to the Author, p. 90. 

Dr. Bentley is indeed a name of first-rate honour among 
Christian theologues, and is frequently appealed to as one 
of their highest authorities, “the learned Bentley,” “the 
prince of critics,” &c. The reader, however, cannot be 
better led to judge how he should appreciate this great 
man’s decision, than by consulting the temper and spirit 
which appears in the annexed specimen of his manner of 
answering the objections of unbelievers, and which I find 
quoted by his zealous admirer :—“ What a scheme would 
these men make? What worthy rules would they pre¬ 
scribe to Providence ? And pray, to what great use or de¬ 
sign ? To give satisfaction to a few obstinate, untractable 
wretcnes ; to those who are not convinced by Moses and 
the prophets, but want one to come from the dead and 
convert them ! Such men mistake the methods of Provi¬ 
dence, and the very fundamentals of religion, which draws 
its votaries by the cords of a man ; by rational, ingenuous, 
and moral motives; not by conviction mathematical, not 
by new evidence miraculous, to silence every doubt and 
whim that impiety and folly can suggest. And yet all 
this would have no effect upon such spirits and disposi 
fions. If they now believe not Christ and his Apostles, 
neither would they believe if their own schemes were 
complied with.”— Phileleutherus Lipsiensis , p. 114. 

The reader is here in full possession of the Christian 
argument. He must bear in mind, however, that the 
argument, as thus far stated, is entirely in Christian hands 

* Aye, to be sure ! to be sure ! they pointed the wrong way ! 

t O fortunate fellow ! I’d have sworn he would have met with it ! 


CHRISHNA 


173 


Had we ventured to supply to these admissions, the fur¬ 
ther discoveries which unbelieving’ historians have made, 
ve might have enriched our matter with the still more 
striking coincidence of the facts; that the reputed father 
of Chrishna was a carpenter , and that he was put to death 
at last between two thieves; after which, he arose from the 
dead, and returned again to his heavenly seat in Vaicon- 
tha; leaving the instructions contained in the Geeta to be 
preached through the continent of India by his disconso¬ 
late son, and disciple Arjun.” 

Tractable indeed, and easy of faith, must the adopters of 
Dr. Bentley’s explanation of the matter be, who can suffer 
evidence of this character, yielded and supplied as it is, 
by authority as great as any they can pretend, and that 
authority too, entirely adverse to our deductions, to 
be swept away by psalmistry , by a calculation of the posi¬ 
tion of the planets ; or defeated by a sagacious discovery 
of some chronological discrepancy, which Dr. Bentley, 
who was satisfied that it was there before he looked for it, 
found in the Janampatra. 

The exquisite accuracy of the astrological demonstra¬ 
tion, that Krishna was born on the 7th of August, a. d. 
600, at midnight; can only be put on the same footing with 
the chronology of Julius Africanus, who has in like man¬ 
ner demonstrated that the world was made on the 1st of 
September, and was exactly five thousand five hundred 
and eight years, three months, and twenty-five days old 
at the birth of Christ. 

The argument against the antiquity of the Hindu my¬ 
thology, from the discovery that “ a great many of its 
festivals, as now observed, agree with the modern astron¬ 
omy only, and not with the ancient,” is of no more 
validity, than if it were objected (as with equal truth it 
might be) that the time of celebrating our Christian fes¬ 
tivals has in like manner been accommodated to more 
modern arrangements of our calendar, and agrees not with 
the ancient astronomy. When the Hindu astronomers 
at any time found it convenient to alter their calendar, it 
was surely as competent in them to make the times of cel¬ 
ebrating their ancient festivals agree with their improved 
knowledge of astronomy; as it was for our Christian as¬ 
tronomers to alter the style, and to fix the celebration of 
Easter and Whitsuntide to different seasons of the year 
from those in which they had been observed for previous 
ages. 


16* 


174 


CHRISHNA. 


As for all the uncertainty with respect to the alleged 
time of the birth of Chrishna, there is but little ground for 
the advantage of Christians, who have never yet been 
able to fix the date of the day, or month, or even of the 
year of the birth of Chr st. 

“The year in which it happened,” says Mosheim,* 
“has not "hitherto been fixed with certainty, notwithstand¬ 
ing the deep and laborious researches of the learned.” 
The learned John Albert Fabricius has collected all the 
opinions of the learned on the subject :f that which ap¬ 
pears most probable is, that it happened about a year and 
six months before the death of Herod, in the year of Rome 
748 or 749. “The uncertainty, however, of this point,” 
continues our great ecclesiastical historian, “ is of no great 
consequence. We know that the Sun of Righteousness 
has shone upon the world; and although we cannot fix 
the precise period in which he arose, this will not preclude 
us from enjoying the direction and influence of his vital 
and salutary beams.” 

This is the most unfortunate figure of speech (if it be no 
more than a figure of speech) that Christians could possi¬ 
bly resort to; since, instead of raising and exalting our 
ideas of the divine Saviour above all associations with the 
wild conceits of the heliolatry and idolatry of the heathen 
world, it brings us at once to the irresistible apprehension, 
that the Christian Saviour, after all, is no more than what 
the iEscuIapius, Hercules, Adonis, Bacchus, Apollo, and 
Chrishna were ; that is, an emblematical personification of 
the Sun. 

“Colonel Valency,” says Sir William Jones, “assures 
me that Chrishna in Irish means the Sun.”— Asiatic Re¬ 
searches, vol. 1, p. 262. 

The taking of the name of a thing in any unknown lan¬ 
guage for the name of a person , would naturally render 
these personifications infinite ; and cause the natural his¬ 
tory of things ivithout life to be related or understood as if 
they had been real adventures of actually existing person¬ 
ages. Hence, have we actions and sufferings, sentiments 
and affections, and all that could be predicated of rational 
beings—predicated not only of animals, but of vegetables 
and inanimate substances, of the works of men’s hands, 
and even of the abstractions of their thoughts. The ship 
Argo , in which Jason and his companions sailed for the 

* Ecclesiastical History, vol. 1, p. 53. 
t In his Bibliograph. Antiq'iar> cap. 7, sect. 10, p. 187. 


CHRISHNA. 


175 

golden fleece, had its imaginary moral qualities ; it fought 
the waves, it suffered, it conquered, it was translated into 
heaven. The disposition of mind called charity , is 
described by St. Paul, under all the circumstances that 
could be imagined of a most accomplished and lovely 
woman: u She suffereth long, and is kind; she doth not 
behave herself unseemly, seeketh not her oicn, is not easily provok¬ 
ed,” &c. (1 Cor. xiii.); though nothing could be further 
from his intention, than that we should take charity to be 
a person who had a real existence, and fall to the folly of 
endeavouring to find out when she was born, under what 
king’s reign, and in what country, &e.; as it may be con¬ 
jectured some have done with respect to other personifi¬ 
cations, whose existence, actions and sufferings, were of 
an equally metaphorical and figurative origination. But 
if the identity of the mythological personages, Christ and 
Chrishna, and the absolute derivation of the Christian 
from the Hindu or Brahminical religion, might yet seem 
matter rather of curious excogitation, than of satisfactory 
proof; the matter receives the utmost corroboration which 
any historical fact of such remote antiquity, could be 
conceived to have, from the entire discomfiture and over¬ 
throw of all attempts to evade the conclusion, which we 
achieve in the strength of further researches, later dis¬ 
coveries, and ampler concessions won from the convic¬ 
tion of the most intelligent of Christians themselves, who 
have dared to trust themselves with the important inves¬ 
tigation. 

We have become better acquainted with the evidences 
of the Christian religion than it was possible for the Lard- 
ners, Watsons, or Paleys to have been.—We have means 
of information which they had not.—We are in possession 
of intelligence, the result of more extensive research, of 
more impartial enquiry, and of more recent discoveries, 
of which they were absolutely ignorant. 

No work whatever, of the divines of the now antiqua¬ 
ted school of Christian-evidence writers, can be fairly ad¬ 
duced either as authority or argument, against the thou¬ 
sand-fold more formidable array of objections, which have 
emerged even within the last ten years, from the further 
concessions made by divines themselves, from the improv¬ 
ed powers of reasoning, advanced science, extended 
knowledge, and greater moral courage of unbelievers, to 
bring up that science and knowledge to the conflict. 

To pretend any longer that infidels insist only on argu 


176 


CHRISHNA. 


merits that have already been answered, or refuted, is h? 
discover the grossest ignorance of what their arguments 
really are, and in that ignorance to find the only excuse 
for what such a pretence really is,—the grossest false¬ 
hood. 

To pretend to refer the anxious mind for the solution 
of its doubts to any defence of the Christian religion 
written earlier than the present century,’ is but parallel in 
absurdity to the setting a medical student of the present 
day to acquire his knowledge qf chymistry and physic 
from the cumbrous folios of Paracelsus, Bombastus, or 
the Commentaries of Van Sweeten, Hippocrates, and 
Galen. 

After the unmeasured abuse, and bitter vituperations 
which I have incurred for the prominence which I have 
given to this most pregnant argument, I find Godfrey 
Higgins, Esq. of Skellow Grange, Yorkshire, himself a 
very learned, ingenious * and sincere Christian, in his 
superb work on the Celtic Druids, published by R. Hunter, 
1827, thus laying at our feet, the keys of the fortress, 
in the assault of which, I have taken such hard words, 
hard usage, and every thing that was hard, except hard 
arguments :— 

u After Baillie, and some other learned astronomers 
had turned their attention to the ancient astronomical in¬ 
struments, calculations and observations, of India, it was 
discovered that they proved the antiquity of the world to 
be so great, that what was called by our priests, the 
Mosaic system of chronology, could not be supported. 
Immediately upon this, they set every engine at work to 
counteract the effects of the recorded observations of the 
Hindus, by representing that they are, in fact, merely 
pretended observations founded on back-reckonings. 

“ Professor Playfair of Edinburgh, has given the most 
decisive proofs in the Edinburgh Philosophical Transactions , f 
that the Brahmins, to have made the back-reckonings, 
must have been well acquainted with the most refined of 
the theoretical improvements of modern astronomy. In¬ 
stead of having forgot the principles of their formulae, 

* Mr. Higgins must forgi\e my hoping, that his false way of spelling Christina 
(which is certainly Chrishna, and not Krishna,) may not be an exception against 
his ingenuousness. It was very natural that he should endeavour to bring his 
Christ out of the scrape as well as he could, and save his Saviour ! hut Krishna, 
or Chrishna is fatal to Christ, spell him e’en as you will ! 

t See Vol. 2, and Vol. 4. 


CHRISHNA. 


177 


they must have been much more learned than we know 
they were, and in fact than their ancestors ; indeed more 
learned than our modern astronomers were, until the as¬ 
tronomical theories of Newton were completed very lately, 
by the discoveries of some of the French philosophers.” 

“ Near the city of Benares, in India, are the astrono¬ 
mical instruments cut out of the solid rock of a moun¬ 
tain, which in former times, were used for making 1 the 
observations, which Sir William Jones and the priests 
say, were only back-reckonings. The Bramins of the 
present day, it is said, do not know the use of them ; they 
are of great size, and tradition states them to be of the 
most remote antiquity. If the astronomical facts stated 
in the works of the Bramins, be the effects of the back- 
reckonings, the Bramins of the present day are as ignorant 
of the formulm on which they are grounded, as they are 
of the nature of the astronomical instruments. If they 
have become acquainted with them, it is by the instruction 
of Europeans.” 

“ A gentleman, in the Asiatic Researches, has lately, 
by means of the most deeply learned and laborious cal¬ 
culations, # discovered that the history of Krishna, one of 
the most celebrated Gods of the Hindoos, was invented 
in the year of Christ six hundred ; and that the story was 
laid about the beginning of the Christian a?ra. This goes 
directly to overthrow all the Hindoo calculations. He 
has proved this as clear as the sun at noon ! He has 
absolutely demonstrated it! but it is unfortunate for this 
demonstration , that the statue of this God is to be found in 
the very oldest caves and temples throughout all India, 
—temples, the inscriptions on which are in a language 
used previously to the Sanscrit, and now totally unknown 
to all mankind, any day to be seen amongst other places, 
in the city of Seringham, and the temple at Malvalipuram.” 

It has been moreover satisfactorialy proved, on the 
authority of a passage of Adrian , that the worship of 
Krishna was practised in the time of Alexander the Great 
(330 years before Christ), at what still remains one of the 
most famous temples of India, the temple of Mathura, on 
the Jumna, the Matura Deorum of Ptolemy. So much for 
this astronomical demonstration.”—Celtic Druids , pp. 154, 
155, 156, 157. 

* These “ laborious calculations are Dr. Bentley’s wretched shifts to save 
Christianity. 


78 


CHRISHNA. 


“ It seems the miraculously and stupendously learned 
Bentley, who was to put all the enemies of the Lord to 
silence, has reckoned without his host ; and in discover¬ 
ing by help of the Janampatra , that, from a certain relative 
location of the planets, it would appear that Chrishna was 
born on the 7th of August, a. d. 600, at midnight ; it 
happened most unfortunately for his learned wiseacreship, 
not to occur to him, that all these facts of the locations of 
the planets, are periodical —so that if he be right, that 
the time of the birth of Chrishna can be inferred from 
such a location and the circumstances attending it, (a thing 
in itself very doubtful); all that he will prove, will be, that 
the pretended birth of this God must have taken place, 
at a similar part of a period, some time before the war of 
Alexander the Great. And thus, if we know the length 
of the period or cycle referred to, we shall know the latest 
time at which this God was feigned to be born before the 
birth of Alexander.” Mr. Higgins informs us, that when our 
army, of Indian Seapoysarrived at Thebes in Egypt in the 
course of the French war, they discovered their favourite 
God Chrishna, and instantly fell to worshipping, (no 
doubt the cunning rogues of Bramins* came to Egypt in 
the year 600, and placed his statue amongst the ruins !”) 

“ I made every attempt my time would permit,” says 
Col. Fitzclarence, “ to discover the celebrated figure which, 
caused the Hindoos with the Indian contingent, to find 
fault with the natives of this country, for allowing a tem¬ 
ple of Vishnou to fall to ruins ; but did not succeed.”f 

“ I could say much more,” says Mr. Higgins, “ on the 
subject of this temple at Mathura h for it is very curious— 
but I much prefer letting it alone ! ! !”— Celtic Druids , p. 157. 

In the name of God, what means this letting it alone 9 
Christians have to thank their persecuting City Aider- 
men, their prompt recourse to the arguments of stone 
and iron, their Dorchester and Oakham ; that when really 
learned and intelligent men tread on the threshhold of the 
most important discoveries, they much prefer u letting it 
alone” and leaving us to guess, where we might certainly 
have known. 

In this dilemma, we may guess with a conviction little 
short of certainty—that it was never a little that priests 
would boggle at—1. That the celebrated figure which Col. 
Fitzclarence was hindered from seeing, would have estab- 

* This sarcasm is very severe, but it is from the pen of Christian Mr. Higgins, a 
teliever in divine revelation. 

\ In his Travels, pp. 393, 394 


CHRISHNA. 179 

lished the absolute identity of the Indian Chrishna and 
the Egyptian Christ : 

In confirmation of this guess (if it be no more), we have 
the further light of an admission from the Rev. Mr. Mau¬ 
rice, of the curious fact, that “ the two principal pagodas 
of India, viz. those of Benares and Mathura, are built in 
the form of crosses.”* 

2. That the grounds on which the Hindoos found fault 
with the British government for allowing a temple of 
Vishnou to fall to ruins, was, that the Christian religion 
was absolutely one and the same with the ancient Hindoo 
idolatry : 

3. That the travelling Egyptian Therapeuts brought 
the whole story from India to their monasteries in 
Egypt, where, some time about the commencement of the 
Roman monarchy, it was transmuted into Christianity. 
The tales that had been previously told of the idol of the 
Ganges, were transferred to the twice-living demon of the 
Jordan, precisely as we see the histories of the Grecian 
heroes, plagiarized and told over again of Romans. Thus 
the combat of the Horatii and Curiatii , had been related 
under different names, but with the same circumstances, 
by Democrates apud Stobceum. The action of Mutius 
Scaevola was told before of Agesilaus, and that of Curtius 
precipitating himself into the gulf, has been ascribed also 
to a son of King Midas. See also Pagan heroes turned 
into Christian saints, out of number : indeed, half the 
saints of the Roman calendar are heathen gods and god¬ 
desses, and like the Jewish Jesus, a false creation pro¬ 
ceeding from the heat-oppressed brain. 

4. And lastly, that the Missionaries engaged by the 
East India Company, and otherwise sent to India for the 
ostensible purpose of propagating the gospel, are employed 
really in the diametrically opposite work, of doing their 
utmost to suppress it ; and to carry on the counsel which 
we see guiding their machinations at home, suppressing 
evidence, perverting facts, destroying or hindering the 
monuments of antiquity from coming to the knowledge of 
the community, persecuting and railing at infidels, and 
keeping up that state of general ignorance and consequent 
devotion , that best disposes enslaved and degraded millions 
to bow to the yoke of tyranny, and u to order themselves 
lowly and reverently to all their betters.” 

* Maurice : s Indian Antiquities, vol. 2, p. 361, quoted by Mr. Higgins, p. 127, 
Celtic Druids. 


180 


aPOLLO. 


CHAPTER XXV. 

APOLLO-JESUS CHRIST. 

Cicero mentions four of this name. Pausanias and 
Herodotus, rank Apollo among the Egyptian deities. 
Diodorus Siculus expressly states, that Isis, after having 
invented the practice of medicine, taught this art to her 
son Orus, named also Apollo, who was the last of the 
Gods that reigned in Egypt. It is easy to trace almost 
all the Grecian fables and mythologies from Egypt. If 
the Apollo of the Greeks, was said to be the son of 
Jupiter, it was because Orus, the Apollo of the Egyp¬ 
tians, had Osiris for his father, whom the Greeks con¬ 
founded with Jupiter. If the Greek Apollo were reckoned 
the God of eloquence, music, medicine, and poetry, the 
reason was, that Osiris, who was the symbol of the sun 
among the Egyptians, as well as his son Orus, had there 
taught those liberal arts. If the Greek Apollo were the 
God and conductor of the muses, it was because Osiris 
carried with him in his expedition to the Indies, singing 
women and musicians. This parallel might be carried 
still further, but enough has been said to prove that the 
true Apollo was probably of Egypt. Plutarch, however, 
has decisively shown, that the Egyptians worshipped the 
Sun under the name of Osiris ; and as Osiris was believed 
to have travelled into India, and there established civiliza¬ 
tion and religion, we see at once enough to account for 
the same God coming to be worshipped in India under a 
designation in the language of that country expressive of 
the same sense as Chrishna, that is, the Sun. Many have 
doubted whether Apollo were a real personage, or only 
the great luminary. Vossius has taken pains to prove this 
God to be only an ideal being, and that there never was 
any Apollo but the sun. AH the ceremonies performed to 
his honour, had a manifest relation to the great Source of 
iight which he represented ; whence, this learned writer 
concludes it to be in vain to seek for any other divinity 
than the sun, adored under the naihe Apollo. 

Without any wish to overthrow or to conflict 
against a conclusion founded upon such just and incon¬ 
trovertible premises, one yet cannot restrain one’s wish 
to have known whether so sincere a Christian, in con¬ 
sidering the language ascribed to the God Apollo, and 
the manifest relation to the great source of light in all 


APOLLO. 


181 


the ceremonies performed to his honour, as constituting 
a complete demonstration, that such a personage as 
Apollo never had any real existence, and that it was the 
sun, and the sun only that was worshipped under that 
designation ; whether he had found any clearer references 
to the source of light in that language and those ceremo 
nies, than— 

1. Th^t God should be believed to have said of himself, 

“ I am the light of the world.” —John ix. 5. “/ am come 

a light into the world , that whosoever believeth in me should not 
abide in darkness .”—John xii. 46. 

2. u He hath sent me to preach the acceptable year of the 
Lord.”—Luke iv. 19. 

3. That his sacred legends should abound only with 
such expressions as can have no possible or conceivable 
application, but to the God of day : u A light to lighten the 
Gentiles , and to be the glory (or brightness) of his people.” — 
Luke ii. 32. 

4. That this should be the express message which his 
apostles, or months, were to declare concerning him, that 
u God is light , and in him is no darkness at all.” —1 John 
i. 5. 

5. That his sincerest worshippers should usually have 
addressed him in such phrases as “ Phosphore redde 
diem ”— 

Sweet Phosphor bring the day, 

Whose conqu’ring ray 

May chase these fogs,—6weet Phosphor bring the day. 

Quarle's rendering of Psalm xiii. 

6. u Lighten our darkness we beseech thee Adonai , and by thy 
great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night.” 
— Collect , in Evening Service. 

7. “ God of God , light of light , very God of very God .”— 
Nicene Creed. 

8. a Merciful Adonai , we beseech thee to castfhy bright beams of 
light upon thy church.”—Collect of St. John. 

9. a O God , who, by the leading of a star , didst manifest thy 
only begotten Son to the nations.”—Collect of the Epiphany * 

10. “ To thee all angels cry aloud , the heaiens , and all the 
powers therein.” 

* Or shining forth. —A Christian poet will best instruct us what star that 
was. It was none other.than Venus, the star of the God of day. 

Fairest of stars, last in the train of night, 

If better, thou belong not to the dawn— 

Sure pledge of day, that crown’stthe smiling morn 
With thy bright circlet!— Morning Hymn. 

17 


82 


APOLLO. 


11. u Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy 
Clary,” (or brightness). 

12. “ The clarions company of the (twelve months, or) 
apostles praise thee. 

13. u Thou art the King of Clary, 0 Cfaist /” 

14. “ When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou passest 
through the constellation, or zodiacal sign—the Virgin .” 

15. u When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of winter , 
thou didst open the kingdom of heaven,—-i. e. bring on the 
reign of the summer months, to all believers .” And why 
is it that there should not be one single phrase or form 
of speech either in the New Testament or in our best 
Catholic or Protestant liturgies, but in the most strict 
and literal sense is predicable of the sun, but cannot 
without an inflected and considerably strained use of 
speech, and still more strained effort of the understand¬ 
ing, apply to the person of a man. Resurgere , to rise again; 
and ascendere in cerium, to ascend into heaven, are expres¬ 
sions so plain and obvious, as that we could hardly find 
any to express the literal sense, nearer, of what we witness 
of the rising and setting sun every day of our lives ; 
whereas ’tis only by a most awkward and violent cata- 
chresis in language, that they can be made to convey their 
theological significancy. 

“ All are agreed,” says Cicero, “ that Apollo is none 
other than the Sun, because the attributes which are 
commonly ascribed to Apollo do so wonderfully agree 
thereto.”* 

We are not allowed, however, to assume, that reasoning 
so incontrovertibly just and conclusive with respect to 
the Pagan deity, would hold in any parity of application 
to Jesus Christ, whom his holy Apostle so emphatically 
distinguishes as being u the true light which lighleth every man 
that cometh into the world .”—John i. 9. 

There can be no doubt but that Apollo was more gene¬ 
rally received in the Pagan world than any other deity, 
his worship being so universal, that in almost every region 
he had temples, oracles, and festivals, as innumerable as 
his various names and attributes. Among the most con¬ 
spicuous of his oracles were those of Phocis, at Claros in 
Ionia, at Delos, Delphi, and Didyma,f on Mount Ismenus, 

* Apolinem, aliud nihil esse quam Solem, omnes consentiunt, quippe cui ilia 
quai Apollini vulgo tribuuntur, mire conveniunt.— Cic. 3. De JVatura Deo. 

t It can only be ascribed to a momentary suspension of the divine influence 
which guided the pen of the Evangelist, that one of the epithets of Apollo— 
Didymus, should have been left in the possession of an apostle of Jesus Christ.— 
John xx. 24 


MERCURY. 183 

m Bffiotia, at Larissa among the Argives, and at Heliopolis 
in Egypt. 

“ The Egyptians sometimes symbolized him by a radiated 
circle, and at others by a sceptre with an eye above it—a 
symbol which we see at this day consecrated to the repre¬ 
sentation of the Christian Providence . Nor should we forget 
the claims of his ministers to a peculiar character of sanc¬ 
tity and holiness, which we may well wonder how they 
should ever come to surrender to the pretensions of preach¬ 
ers of Christianity : unless, indeed, we should venture to 
magine that there was never any real dilference between 
them, and that the priests of Apollo and of Jesus were 
ministers of the same religion, and of one and the same 
deity, under different names. ’Tis certain, that Apollo 
had a celebrated shrine at Mount Soracte in Italy, where 
his priests were so remarkable for sanctity, and holiness 
of heart and life, that they could walk on burning coals 
unhurt .”—BelVs Panth. in loco. 

Parkliurst, in his Hebrew Lexicon, under the word 
V?n 4, informs us, that “the rr iVr?— 4 Praise ye Jah !’ or 
4 Hallelujah !’ which the Septuagint have left untrans¬ 
lated, ^ntjXovia^ which begins and ends so many of the 
Psalms, ascribed to David, was a solemn form of praise to 
God , which, no doubt, was far prior to the time of David ; 
since the ancient Greeks had their similar acclamation, 
x/.ekev it ]—— i Hallelujee !’ with which they both began and 
ended their pecans, or hymns, in honour of Apollo.” 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

MERCURY-JESUS CHRIST. 

This god calls for no further notice in our inquiry, than 
from the circumstance of his hav’^g been distinguished in 
the Pagan world by the evangeiica* atle of the Logos, or 
the Word — 44 The Word that in the beginning was with 
God, and that also was a God.” 

Our Christian writers, from whose partial pens we are 
now obliged to gather all they will permit us to know of 
the ancient forms of piety, discover considerable appre¬ 
hension, and a jealous caution in their language, where 
the resemblance between Paganism and Christianity 
might be apt to strike the mind too cogently. Where 
Horace gives us a very extraordinary account of Mer- 


184 


BACCHUS. 


cury’s descent into hell,* and his causing* a cessation of 
the sufferings there,f our Christian mythologist checks our 
curiosity, by the sudden break off— U -As this perhaps 
may be a mystical part of his character, we had better let 
it alone.”— BelVs Panth. vol. 2. p. 72. But the further 
back we trace the evidences of the Christian religion, 
the less concerned we find its advocates to maintain, or 
even to pretend that there was any difference at all be¬ 
tween the essential doctrines of Christianity and Paganism. 

Ammonius Saccus, a learned Christian Father, towards 
the end of the second century, had taught with the highest 
applause in the Alexandrian school, that “all the Gentile 
religions, and even the Christian, were to be illustrated 
and explained by the principles of an universal philosophy; 
but that, in order to this, the fables of the priests were to 
be removed from Paganism, and the comments and inter¬ 
pretations of the disciples of Jesus from Christianity 
while Justin Martyr, the first and most distinguished 
apologist for the Christian religion, who wrote within 
fifty years of the time of the Evangelist St. John, boldly 
challenges the respect of the emperor Adrian and his son, 
as due to the Christian religion, just exactly on the score 
of its sameness and identity with the ancient Paganism. 

“ For by declaring the Logos, the first begotten of God, 
our Master, Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin without 
any human mixture, to be crucified and dead, and to have 
risen again into heaven ; we say no more in this, than 
what you say of those whom you style the sons of Jove, 
&c. As to the son of God, called Jesus, should we allow 
him to be nothing more than man, yet the title of the Son of 
God is very justifiable upon the account of his wisdom, con 
sidering that you have your Mercury in worship under 
the title of The Word, and Messenger of God.”— Reeve's 
Apologies of the Fathers , vol. 1, London, 1716. 

Justin might, if he had pleased, have been still more 
particular, and have shown, that “ among the Gauls, 
more than a hundred years before the Christian era, in the 
district of Chartres, a festival was annually celebrated to 
the honour of the Virgo Paritura, the virgin that should bring 
forth."—Dupuis , tom. 3, p. 51, 4to edit. 

* “ He descended into hell.”— Apostles' Creed. “ That he went down into 
hell, and also did rise again.”— Baptismal Service. ** By which also he went 
and preached unto the spirits in prison.”—1 Pet. Ui. 19. 

t See the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodeinus. 

t Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist. vol. I, p. 171 


THE WORD. 


185 


Gonzales also writes, that among the Indians he found 
a temple Pariturae Virgin is, of the virgin about to bring forth. 

The good Christian Father Epiphanias glories in the 
fact, that the prophecy, “ Behold a virgin shall conceive and 
bring forth a son ,” had been revealed to the Egyptians.— 
Celtic Druids , p. 163. This prophecy, however, should 
rather have been revealed to the Irish, as its literal accom¬ 
plishment is so strikingly of a piece with the equally 
authentic miracles of their patron saint, who sailed across 
the ocean upon a mill-stone, and contrived to heat an 
oven red-hot with nothing but ice .— u Life of the glorious 
Bishop St. Patrick , by Fr. B. B ., St. Omers , 1625, by licence 
of the Censors of Louvaine , of the Bishop of St. Omers , and of 
the Commissary and Definitor-general of the Seraphic Order.” 

THE WORD-JESUS CHRIST. 

The celebrated passage, u In the beginning was the Word , 
and the Word was with God , and the Word was God” &c. 
(John i. 1.) is a fragment of some Pagan treatise on the 
Platonic philosophy, and as such is quoted by Amelius, a 
Pagan philosopher, as strictly applicable to the Logos , or 
Mercury, the Word, as early as the year 263 ; and is 
quoted appropriately as an honourable testimony borne to 
the Pagan deity, by a barbarian. 

With no intention further off, than that of recognizing 
the claims of any human being to that title, Amelius has 
the words, “And this plainly was the Word, by whom 
all things were made, he being himself eternal, as Hera¬ 
clitus also would say ; and by Jove, the same whom the 
barbarian affirms to have been in the place and dignity of 
a principal, and to be with God, and to be God, by whom 
all things were made, and in whom every thing that was 
made, has its life and being ; who, descending into body, 
and putting on flesh, took the appearance of a man, though 
even then he gave proof of the majesty of his nature ; 
nay, and after his dissolution, he was deified again.”* 

This is the language of one, of whom there is not the 
‘east pretence to show that he was a believer of the 

* Kai nrog aqa rjv o Xoyog, xa& y ov aei ovra ra yivouBra eytvtTo , o’? ar xai o 
Hqax/.Birog a^imosts xai vrj cb\ or o (iaq^aqog agtoi bv ryjg ao/VS ragsi tb xai a->a 
xudBOTtjxora nqog &bov Bivai,Si 8 nav-d’ arclutg yeyevtj<f&cu bv i» to yBrousrutv uiv 
xai trp, xat ov KBipvxBvai xai Big oix^iara ninXBiv , xai oaqxa BvdvOaiiBVor, ipuvra 
ta&ai av&Qw 7 iov, p btu xai T8 Trjvtxavra J bixvvbiv rt]g ipvOBwg to /uByaXsiov uubXb i 
xai avaXv&svra nakiv ava&BHo&ai xai &bov sivat, oiog rjr nqo to sig Ow^ia xai t»/« 
aaxa xai t ov av-d'qixuvov xaxa/^Bivai. — Euscb. pr(Bp. Evan lib. xi. C. 19. Cir 
Xante Lardnero, tom. 4, p. 200. 

17* 



18 6 


BACCHUS. 


Gospel, or even if he had ever heard of it, that he did not 
reject it ; it was the language of clear, undisguised, and 
unmingled Paganism. The Logos then, or Word, was a 
designation purely and exclusively appropriate to the Pa¬ 
gan mythology. 

The Valentinians, a sect of Christian heretics of the 
first century, approximated so closely to Paganism, as to 
respect and believe a regular theogony, holding, according 
to Cyrill, that Depth produced Silence, and upon Silence 
begat the Logos.* 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

BACCHUS-JESUS CHRIST 

Was the god of good-cheer, wine, and hilarity; and as 
such, the poets have been eloquent in his praises. On all 
occasions of mirth and jollity, they constantly invoked 
his presence,! and as constantly thanked him for the 
blessings he bestowed. To him they ascribed the greatest 
happiness of which humanity is capable,—the forgetful¬ 
ness of cares, and the delights of social intercourse. It has 
been usual for Christians invariably to represent this 
God as a sensual encourager of inebriation and excess ; 
and reason enough it must be admitted that they have, for 
giving such a colouring to the matter ; since, only by so 
doing, could they conceal the resemblance which an im¬ 
partial observance would immediately discover between 
the Phoenician Yesus,:]; who taught mankind the culture 
of the vine, and so without a miracle changed their drink 
from mere water into wine, “ which cheereth God and man” 
(Judges, ix. 13), and the Egyptian Jesus, who, by a 
manoeuvre upon half a dozen water-pots, was believed to 
have persuaded a company of intoxicated guests, that he 
had turned water into wine ; of which the narrator of the 
story, with a striking tone of sarcasm, remarks, “ This 
beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee, and 
manifested forth his glory ; and his disciples believed on 
him,” (John ii. 11). As much as to say, that his dis¬ 
ciples only would be the advocates of so egregious an im¬ 
posture. “ He manifested forth his glory; ” that is, his 

* Bv&oc tytrrtjOs Ziyi]r, y.ai ano rrjc Ziyi]? tTtxvonoitt Joyov. 

t “ For where two or three are gathered together in, my name, there am I in 
.he midst of them.”—Matt, xviii. 20. 

$ Yesus. —Volney has shown that Yes was one of the names of Bacchus 
which, with the Latin termination, is nothing else than Yesus, or Jesus. 


BACCHUS. 


187 


peculiar mythological character, as the God of Wine, 
which was in like manner the peculiar characteristic of 

Bacchus. 

The real origin of the mystical three letters I H S, sur¬ 
rounded with rays of glory, to this day retained even in 
our Protestant churches, and falsely supposed to stand for 
Jesus Hominum Salvator , is none other than the identical 
name of Bacchus— Yes, exhibited in Greek letters, rnz .— 
See Hesychius on the word i. e. Yes, Bacchus, Sol, the 
Sun. 

The well-paid apologists of this and all other absurdities 
that have obtained their translation from Pagan into 
Christian legends, in vain endeavour to blink the ob¬ 
scenity betrayed in their Greek text. This miracle 
was not performed till all the witnesses of it we*e in the 
last stage of intoxication. “ Every man at the beginning 
doth set forth good wine , and when men have well drunk , then 
that ichich is worse ; but thou hast kept the good wine until now” 
is the remark of the Architriclinus, or ruler of the feast, 
the only individual, perhaps, except those who contributed 
to the juggle, who could speak at all. u Hast kept the good 
wine until now ; ” that is to say, “ Till now, that it is all 
over with them, and you see them sprawling under the 
table, or scarce knowing whether their heads or heels are 
uppermost.” The original text supports this sense, as the 
same will be found in the drunken odes of Anacreon : u To 
arms ! But I shall drink. Boy , bring me the goblet! for I 
had rather lie dead drunk , than dead.”* 

Nothing short of a debility of intellect produced by re¬ 
ligious enthusiasm, similar to the sedative effects of 
frequently-repeated intoxication, could have hindered 
Christians from seeing the deep and pungent sarcasm on 
their religion involved in this drunken miracle, which a 
moment’s rational reflection would expose. In any 
sense but that of an imposition practised upon men’s 
senses, the miracle involves a physical impossibility, and 
a moral contradiction.* In no idea that a rational mind 
can form of the power of God himself, can we conceive 
that he could make a thing to be and not to and at the 
same time ; or so operate on the past, as to cause that to 
have been , which really had not been. That fluid, therefore, 

* Onyii' eXu) Sb niro) Hag ardqmnog nQonov toy xaXov oh oy 

(fieo' tuot xvnsMov w nai ! xai o rav nedvQdwoi tot* to* 

MsOvovra yaq xsiaOcu sXaoou). 

IJoXXv xqbiooov tj xtavorra. 

Anacreon 


138 


BACCHUS. 


whatever it was, which had not been pressed out of the 
grape,—which had not been generated, concocted, ma¬ 
tured and exuded through the secretory ducts of the vine, 
drawn up by its roots out of the earth, circulated through 
its capillary tubes, and effunded into its fruit, could not be 
wine, nor cou.d God himself make it to be so. 

“ That were to make 

Strange contradiction, which to God himself 
Impossible is held.” Milton. 

The more shrewd and political among those who profess 
and call themselves Christians, have avowed themselves 
not a little ashamed of this miracle, have seen and recog¬ 
nized its palpably Pagan character, and sighed, and wished 
that it were peacefully apocryphized out of its place in the 
sacred volume. 

Our only moral use of these Christian admissions shall 
be to remind our readers, for the advantage of some fur¬ 
ther stage of our argument, that we have here, in the very 
volume which has so long been pretended to contain 
“truth without any mixture of error,’’ an affair not only 
decidedly and unequivocally fabulous, but physically im¬ 
possible ; and this re-edited under an apparatus of Chris¬ 
tian names, and told with circumstances of time, place and 
character —stet exempli gratia ! 

The Egyptian Bacchus was brought up at Nysa, and is 
famous as having been the conqueror of India. In Egypt 
he was called Osiris, in India Dionysius, and not impro¬ 
bably Chrishna , as he was called Adoneus, which signifies 
the Lord of Heaven , or the Lord and Giver of light, in 
Arabia ; and Liber, throughout the Roman dominions, 
from whence is derived our term liberal , for every thing 
that is generous, frank, and amiable. 

Though egregiously scandalized by the moderns, as all 
the Pagan divinities are, where Christians are the carvers, 
he was far otherwise understood by the ancients. The 
intention of his imagined presenoe at the festive board 
was to restrain and prevent , and not to authorize excess. 
His discipline prescribed the most strict sobriety, and 
the most rational and guarded temperance in the use of 
his best gift to man, which wisely used, exalts as much our 
moral as it does our physical energies, endears man to 
man, gives vigour to his understanding, life to his wit, 
and inspiration to his discourse. Bacchus was, in the 
strictest and fairest sense of the word, a pure and holy 



BACCHUS. 




god ; he was deity rendered amiable. He is called by 
Horace in general the modest God, the decent God. The 
finest moral of his allegorical existence is, that he was 
never to be seen in company with Mars ; so that he had 
juster claims than any other to be designated “ the 
Prince of Peace.” Orpheus,* however, directly states that 
Bacchus was a lawgiver , calls him Moses, and attributes to 
him the two tables of the law.f It is well known, howev¬ 
er, that his characteristic attribute was immortal boyhood ; 
and since it is admitted that no real Bacchus ever existed, 
but that he was only a mask or figure of some concealed 
truth, (see Horace’s inimitable ode to this deity,) there can 
be no danger of our dropping the clue of his allegorical 
identification, in winding it through all the mazes of his 
vocabulary of names, and all the multifarious personifica¬ 
tions of the same primordial idea. 

But the most striking circumstance of this particular 
emblem of the Sun is, that in all the ancient forms of 
invocation to the Supreme Being, we find the very 
identical expressions appropriated to the worship of 
Bacchus ; such as, Io Terombe !— Let us cry unto the Lord! 
Io ! or Io Baccoth !—God, see our tears! Jehovah Evan ! 
Ilevoe ! and Eloah !— r Fhe Author of our existence , the 
mighty God! Hu Esh !— Thou art the fire! and Elta 
Esh !— Thou art the life ! and Io Nissi !—0 Lord, direct us! 
which last is the literal English of the Latin motto in the 
arms of the City of London retained to this day, “ Domine 
dirige nos” The Romans, out of all these terms, preferred 
the name of Baccoth, of which they composed Bacchus. 
The more delicate ear of the Greeks was better pleased 
with the words Io Nissi, out of which they formed Diony¬ 
sius. 

That it was none other than the Sun which the Jews 
themselves understood to be meant, and actually worship 
ped, under his characteristic epithet of The Lord, see 
u confirmation strong as proof of holy writ ” in the Jewish 
general’s address to the Sun — 

u Then spake Joshua to the Lord, and said , Sun, stand 
thou still upon Gibeon! So the Sun stood still in the midst 

* Orpheus, who for the most part is followed by Homer, was the great intro¬ 
ducer of the rites of the heathen worship among the Greeks, being charged with 
having invented the very names of the gods. He wrote, that all things were 
made by One Godhead with three names, and that this God is all things. — 
Hebrew Lexicon, 347. 

t Bacchum, Orpheus voeat uoaty hoc est Moses et 3tnmxpoQoi —Legislatorem, 
et eidem tribuit Suikaxa dta^ov tito^or quasi duplices legis tabulas.— Porney 
Panth. Mythieum, p- 57. 


190 


PACCHUS. 


of heaven. And there was no day like that , before it or after it , 
that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man.” —Joshua x. 
12, 13, 14. 

The Bacchanalia, or religious feasts in honour of 
Bacchus, were celebrated with much solemnity, and with 
a fervent and impassioned piety, among the ancients, 
particularly the Athenians, who, till the commencement 
of the Olympiads, even computed their years from them, 
dating all transactions and events, as Christians have 
since done, with an Anno Domini, in the year of our Lord. 
The Bacchanalia are sometimes called Orgies, from the 
transport and enthusiasm with which they were cele¬ 
brated. The form and disposition of the solemnity de¬ 
pended at Athens on the appointment of the supreme 
magistrate, and was at first extremely simple ; but by 
degrees, it became encumbered with abundance of cere¬ 
monies, and attended with a world of dissoluteness and 
excess, probably competing in enormity and indecency 
with a Christian carnival : so that the Pagan Romans, 
who had adopted the orgies, were afterwards ashamed of 
the exhibition, and suppressed them throughout Italy, by 
a decree of the Senate. 

The orgies celebrated originally to the honour of Bac¬ 
chus, are still continued in honour of the same deity, 
under another epithet ; as may be observed by any 
person who should choose to waste an hour in attending 
the revival meetings of the wilder orders of Christian 
Methodists—the Dunkers, Jumpers, &c. and all who pre¬ 
tend to a more spiritual and primitive Christianity. The 
hysterical young women, sighing, moaning, 

“ Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting, 

Possessed beyond the muse’s painting,” 

under the impressions which our evangelical fanatics 
endeavour to produce on their imaginations, are the very 
antitypes of the frantic priestesses of Bacchus. Nor can 
any man doubt, that if the advance of civilization, and 
the improved reason of mankind, did not stand in bar of 
such excesses, the state of mind called sanctification , which 
our clergy aim to render as general as they can, would 
continue as evangelized Bacchanalia to this day. 

In the ancient Orphic verses sung in the orgies of Bac¬ 
chus, as celebrated throughout Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, 
Arabia, Asia Minor, Greece, and ultimately in Italy, it 
was related how that God, who had been born in Arabia, 
was picked up in a box that floated on the water, and 



PROMETHEUS 


191 


took his name Mises, in signification of liis having be^n 
“saved from the waters,”* and Bimater , from his having 
had two mothers ;+ that is, one by nature, and anotner 
who had adopted him. He had a rod with which he per¬ 
formed miracles, and which he could change into a serpent 
at pleasure. He passed the Red Sea dry-shod, at the head 
of his army. He divided the waters of the rivers Orontes 
and Hydaspus, by the touch of his rod, and passed through 
them dry-shod. By the same mighty wand, he drew water 
from the rock ; and wherever he marched, the land flow¬ 
ed with wine, milk, and honey.” 

The Indian nations were believed to have been entirely 
involved in darkness till the light of Bacchus shone on 
them. 

Homer relates, how in a wrestling match with Pallas, 
Bacchus yielded the victory and Pausanias, that when 
the Greeks had taken Troy, they found a box which con¬ 
tained an image of this god, which Eurypilus having pre¬ 
sumptuously ventured to look into, was immediately 
smitten with madness.§ Why should we further prose¬ 
cute this laborious idleness ? Demonstration can call for 
no more. Every part of the Old Testament, from first to 
last, is Pagan: not so much as one single line, containing 
or Cx)nveying the vestige of any idea or conceit whatever, 
find we in God’s temple, but what will fit back again and 
dove-tail into its original niche in the walls of the Pan¬ 
theon.—Compare the Chapter on the State of the Jews, in 
this DiEGE5is. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

PROMETHEUS-JESUS CHRIST. 

This was a deity who united the divine and human 
nature in one person, and was confessedly “ both, God and 
man ”—perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable 
soul and human flesh subsisting ; equal to the father as 
touching his godhead, but inferior to the father as touch¬ 
ing his manhood: who, although he was God and man, 
yet was he not two, but one Prometheus ; one, not by 
conversion of the godhead into flesh, but by taking the 
manhood into God : one altogether, not by confusion of 
substance, bid by unity of person : for as the reasonable 

* From to dr tW out or forth. —“ Because she said, in/Vt^D —I drew kin 
out. —Exod. ii. lu 

t Jiy *.r wq —Ba<* m cognomen. t Iliad. 48. 


§ In Achais. 


192 


PROMETHEUS. 


soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Prome¬ 
theus : who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down 
from heaven, and was incarnate, and was made man, and 
was crucified also for us, under force and strength ; he 
suffered, and descended into hell, rose again from the dead, 
he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of 
the Father, God Almighty.” 

Thus far the Pagan and the Christian credenda ran hand 
in hand together ; and it is a more than striking coinci¬ 
dence, that the name Prometheus should be directly 
synonymous with the Logos, or Word of God, an epithet 
applied by St. John to the God and man , or demi-deity of 
the Gospel, from nqo. before-hand , and «^oc, care, or counsel ; 
hence directly signifying the Christian deity, Providence, 
which we see emblemized as an eye surrounded with rays 
of glory, and casting its beams of light upon the affairs of 
our world. Indeed, under this designation, he continues 
to this day a more fashionable deity than the Logos of 
St. John. We find acknowledgments of dependence on 
Divine Providence , and the blessing of Providence , or 
Prometheus, spoken of in our British parliament, occur¬ 
ring in his majesty’s speeches, and received with the 
most respectful sentiment from one end of the kingdom to 
the other, where the introduction of the name of Jesus 
Christ, in the place of that of Prometheus or Providence, 
would be received with an universal smirk of undisguised 
contempt. 

The best information of the character, attributes, and 
actions of this deity, is to be derived from the beautiful 
tragedy of nQoue&evg Js^kutt]?, or Prometheus Bound , of 
iEschylus,* which was acted in the theatre of Athens, 
500 years before the Christian era, and is by many con¬ 
sidered to be the most ancient dramatic poem now in 
existence. The plot was derived from materials even at 
that time of an infinitely remote antiquity. Nothing was 
ever so exquisitely calculated to work upon the feelings of 
the spectator. No author ever displayed greater powers 
of poetry, with equal strength of judgment, in sup¬ 
porting through the piece the august character of the 
divine sufferer. The spectators themselves were incon- 
sciously made a party to the interest of the scene : its 
hero was their friend, their benefactor, their creator, and 
their saviour ; his wrongs were incurred in their quarrel— 
his sorrows were endured for their salvation; “he was 
wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for their 

* Or Potter’s beautiful translation of it, of which I here avail myself. 


PROMETHEUS. 


193 


iniquities ; the chastisement of their peace was upon him, 
and by his stripes they were healed,” (Isaiah liii. 5). 
u He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his 
mouth.” The majesty of his silence, whilst the ministers 
of an offended God were nailing him by the hands and 
feet to Mount Caucasus, could be only equalled by the 
modesty with which he relates, while hanging on the 
cross,* his services to the human race, which had brought 
on him that horrible crucifixion :— 

“ I will speak, 

Not as upbraiding them, but my own gifts 
Commending. ’Twas I who brought sweet hope 
T’ inhabit in their hearts—I brought 
The fire of heaven to animate their clay : 

And through the clouds of barbarous ignorance 
Diffused the beams of knowledge. In a word, 
Prometheus taught each useful art to man.” 

In answer to a call made on him, to explain how his 
philanthropy could have incurred such a terrible punish¬ 
ment, he proceeds:— 

“ See what, a god, I suffer from the gods ! 

For mercy to mankind, I am not deemed 
Worthy of mercy ; but in this uncouth 
Appointment, am fixed here, 

A spectacle dishonourable to Jove ! 

On the throne of heaven scarce was he seated, 

On the powers of heaven 
He showered his various benefits, thereby 
Confirming his sovereignty ; but for unhappy mortals 
Had no regard, but all the present race 
Willed to extirpate, and to form anew. 

None, save myself, opposed his will. I dared, 

And boldly pleading, saved them from destruction— 
Saved them from sinking to the realms of night; 

For which offence, I bow beneath these pains, 

Dreadful to suffer, piteous to behold !” 

In the catastrophe of the plot, his especially professed 
friend, Oceanus, the Fisherman, as his name Petrams 
indicates, (Petrous was an interchangeable synonyme 
of the name Oceanus,) being unable to prevail on him to 
make his peace with Jupiter, by throwing the cause of 
human redemption out of his hands,f u forsook him and 

* The cross referring to the attitude of the sufferer, Prometheus may be called 
tOTavQoHttvog, or artcixoAoniousvog , as well as Jesus. 

t “ Then Peter took him, and began to rebuke him, saying, Be it far from 
thee, Lord : this shall not be unto thee.”—Matt. xvi. 22. 

18 


194 


PROMETHEUS. 


fled.” None remained to be witnesses of his dying 
agonies, but the chorus of ever amiable and ever-faithfui 
women which also bewailed and lamented him, (Luke 
xxiii. 27,) but were unable to subdue his inflexible phi¬ 
lanthropy. Overcome at length, by the intensity of his 
pains, he curses Jupiter in language hardly different in 
teims, and but little inferior in sublimity to the 4< Eloi , Eloi> 
lama sabacthani /” of the Gospel. And immediately the 
whole frame of nature became convulsed : the earth shook, 
the rocks rent, the graves were opened ; and in a storm 
that seemed to threaten the dissolution of the universe, the 
curtain fell on the sublimest scene ever presented to the 
contemplation of the human eye—a Dying God ! The 
Christian muse has inspired our modern poets with no 
strains on this theme, but such as bear the character of 
plagiarism, parody, or paraphrase on the Greek tragedy. 
A worshipper of Prometheus would look in vain through 
all our collections of sacred poetry for a single idea which 
his own forms of piety had not suggested, or a single 
phrase whose reference would not seem to him, to have 
as direct an application to the god-man of iEschylus, as 
to the Jesus of the Evangelists : 

“ Lo, streaming from the fatal tree, 

His all-atoning blood ! 

Is this the Infinite ? ’Tis he— 

Prometheus, and a God ! 

Well might the sun in darkness hide, 

And veil his glories in, 

When God, the great Prometheus, died, 

For man, the creature’s sin.” 

The preternatural darkness which attended the cruci¬ 
fixion of Prometheus, was natural enough as exhibited 
on the stage, and is beautifully described in the language 
ol the tragedy. Nor is there any difficulty in conceiving, 
that when the mighty effect of so deep a tragedy on the 
feelings and sentiments of the audience, became an inex¬ 
haustible source of wealth to the performers, there would 
be found those who would be shrewd enough to discover 
the policy of enhancing and perpetuating so profitable an 
impression on the vulgar mind, by maintaining that there 
was much more than a mere show in the business ; that 
it was an exhibition of circumstances that had really 
happened ; that Prometheus was a real personage, and 
had actually done, and suffered, and spoken as in so 
hvely a manner had been set before them ; that the tragedy 


PROMETHEUS. 


195 


was a gospel put into metre ; and that nothing but “ an 
evil heart of unbelief ” could induce any man to doubt 
u the certainty of those things wherein he had been instructed .” 
It is probably no more than a figure of speech, though cer¬ 
tainly very injudiciously chosen, in which Origen calls the 
crucifixion of Christ the most awful tragedy that was ever 
icted.* 

But the pretence of the reality of the event would break 
down , in the judgment of the better-informed, from the 
total want of evidence to support that part of the detail, 
which, had it been real, could not have wanted the clear¬ 
est and most constraining demonstration. The darkness 
which closed the scene on the suffering Prometheus, was 
easily exhibited on the stage, by putting out the lamps ; 
but when the tragedy was to become history, and the 
fiction to be turned into fact, the lamp of day could not 
be so easily disposed of. Nor can it be denied that the 
miraculous darkness which the Evangelists so solemnly 
declare to have attended the crucifixion of Christ, labours 
under precisely the same fatality of an absolute and total 
want of evidence. 

Gibbon, in his usual strain of sarcasm and irony, keenly 
asks, u How shall we excuse the supine inattention of 
the pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which 
were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their 
reason, but to their senses ? This miraculous event, which 
ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the 
devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of 
science and history. Tt happened during the lifetime of 
Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced 
the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence 
of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious 
work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature—• 
earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his 
indefatigable curiosity could collect ; both the one and the 
other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon 
to which the mortal eye has been witness since the crea¬ 
tion of the globe.”— Gibbon , vol. 2, ch. 15, p. 379. 

This objection of Gibbon is answered by Bishop Wat- 

* His answer to Celsus, chapter 27. What other than this is the sense of those 
words of the apostolic chief of sinners, “ O foolish Galatians, who hath &e- 
ivitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ 
hath been evidently set forth crucified among you ?”—Gal. iii. 1. Surely, it 
was not in the country of the Galatians that Christ was crucified ; nor could ho 
have been set foith before their eyes, and evidently , otherwise than by a picture, 
or in a theatrical representation ! 


196 


PROMETHEUS. 


son, in a double-entendre paragraph, which opens with the 
curious word to the wise , that 44 though he was aware he 
was liable to be misunderstood in what he was going to 
say, yet Mr. Gibbon would not misunderstand him.” Then 
follows the most extraordinary declaration of his own, 
(a bishop’s) faith, “ that however mysterious the dark¬ 
ness at the crucifixion might have been, he had no doubt 
the power of God was as much concerned in its production, 
as it was in the opening of the graves, and the resurrection 
of the dead bodies of the saints that slept, which accom¬ 
panied that darkness.”— Third Letter to Gibbon , last para¬ 
graph . Another way of saying, that every sensible man 
must perceive that one part of the story was just as pro¬ 
bable as the other, or that it was a romance altogether. 
The good Bishop ventured to trust his security to the 
well-proved truth of the adage, 44 None are so blind as 
those who will not see.” 

The immoral and mischievous tendency of the doctrine 
of atonement for sin, so acceptable to guilty minds, and so 
eagerly embraced by the greatest monsters of iniquity, had 
been preached by self-interested priests, and reprobated 
by all who wished well to mankind, long before that doc¬ 
trine was deduced from the Christian Scriptures, long be¬ 
fore those Scriptures are pretended to have been written. 

Before the period assigned to the birth of Christ, the 
poet Ovid had assailed the demoralizing delusion with the 
most powerful shafts of philosophic scorn : 

“ Cum sis ipse nocens, moritur cur victima pro te ? 

Stultitia est morte alterius sperare salutern.” 

4 4 When thou thyself art guilty , why should a victim die for 
thee 9 What folly it is to expect salvation from the death of 
another .” 

No particle of difficulty remains, then, in accounting for 
the fact, that in that portion of the Acts of the Apostles in 
which the miraculous style is discontinued, and we so 
clearly trace the probable and most likely real adventures 
or journal of a missionary sent out from the college of the 
Egyptian Therapeuts joined on as an appendix to some 
fragment of their sacred legends which detailed the mys¬ 
tical adventures of the supposed first founders of their 
order, whose example the missionary was to have con¬ 
tinually before him,*—we should read, that when the 

* This appendix commences in the 13th chapter, where we find Saul in the 
mission at Antioch, and preaching again, one of the sermons which had been 
before ascribed to Peter 


PROMETHEUS. 


197 


apostolic Therapeut attempted to preach his doctrine of 
“ Jesus Christ and him crucified,” at Athens, he found that 
the Athenians were already in possession of all he had to 
communicate, and that what he was endeavouring to set 
off'as a doctrine newly revealed, was with them a very old 
story. He brought to their ears “no new thing.”* The 
Epicurean and Stoical philosophers were more at home 
than himself upon that subject, and called him u a babbler ,” 
the very term that most expressively designates the cha¬ 
racter of a doting ignoramus , who, in the arrogance of his 
own conceit, will be for ever foisting up old stories of a 
hundred thousand years standing, and swearing that they 
nad occurred in his own experience, and had happened to 
nobody else but some particular acquaintances of his. 

The majority, however, carried the vote that he should 
have a fair hearing, and Paul was allowed to preach in the 
Areopagus. The previous rebuke he had received had 
completely subdued his impertinence ; he no more pre¬ 
sumed to lay claim to originality in the crucifying story. 
He preached pure Deism, quoted their own poets, and 
ventured not once so much as to name his Jesus , or to 
make an allusion that could be construed as referring to 
him rather than to any other of the god-men or man-gods 
who had risen from, the dead as well as he. (Acts xvii). 

Prometheus, exactly answering to the Christian per¬ 
sonification Providence, is, like that personification, used 
sometimes as an epithet synonymous with the Supreme 
Deity himself. The Pagan phrase, “ Thank Prometheus 
like the Christian one, u Thanh Providence ,” its literal 
interpretation, meant exactly the same as “ Thank God!” 
Thus in The Orphic Hymn lo Chronus or Saturn,f we 
have this sublime address to the Supreme Deity under 
his name Prometheus , “Illustrious, cherishing Father, both 
of the immortal gods and of men, various of counsel,| spot- 

* Acts xvii. 18. 

t See the original in Eschenbachius’s edit. p. 110. Compare also my learned and 
amiable friend’s edition in original Greek inscription types, cast at his own expense. 

t Ihe three similar epithets, “ Various of Counsel,” “ Various in design” 
“ Tortuous in counsel,” would justify the doctrine, that the whole Trinity was 
comprehended in this “ Prometheus the power of God, and Prometheus the 
wisdom of God.” (I Cor. i. 24.) “His name shall be called, Wonderful 
Counsellor, the mighty God.” (Isa. ix. 6.) Lactantius admits, that though 
what the poets delivered concerning the creation of man was corrupted, it was not 
different in effect from the truth as held by Christians ; for in that the}* have 
asserted that man was created out of clay by Prometheus, they were not 
wrong as to the fact, but only as to the name of the Creator.— Lactan T *tst<>t 
lib. ii. c. 10,— Kortholto Pagayio Qbtrectatore, Citante p 34. 

18* 


198 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


less, powerful, mighty Titan, who consumest all things, 
and again thyself repairest them, who holdestthe ineffable 
bands throughout the boundless world ; thou universal pa¬ 
rent of successive being, various in design, fructifierof the 
earth and of the starry heaven, dread Prometheus, who 
dwellest in all parts of the world, author of generation, 
tortuous in counsel, most excellent, hear our suppliant 
voice, and send of our life a happy blameless end.” Amen 1 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 

The nile was worshipped as a god by the inhabitants 
of the countries fertilized by its inundations, before all 
records of human opinions or actions. Plato , who flourished 
348 years before the Christian era, records, that the Egyp¬ 
tian priests had pointed out to him on their pyramids the 
symbolical hieroglyphics of a religion which had existed in 
uninterrupted orthodoxy among them for upwards of ten 
thousand years. Nor has the progress of Christianity or 
civilization, even at this day, entirely abolished the reli¬ 
gious honours paid to this king of streams. The priests 
called the Cophtes still think that they u sanctify its 
waters to the mystical washing away of sin,” by throwing 
into it some beads or some bits of a cross ; as in our own 
baptismal service in the church of England at this day, 
the priest spreads his hand over the font, and uses the 
words, “ Sanctify this water to the mystical washing 
away of sin ; ” and then sprinkling the water so sanctified 
in the child’s face, and making the sign of the cross upon 
its forehead, he adds, “We do sign him with the sign of 
the cross,” &c. 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS ENTIRELY PAGAN. 

The holy father Minucius Felix, in his Octavius, written 
as early as the year 211, indignantly resents the supposi¬ 
tion that the sign of the cross should be considered as ex¬ 
clusively a Christian symbol ; and represents his advocate 
of the Christian argument, as retorting on an infidel oppo¬ 
nent, “ As for the adoration of crosses, which you object 
against us, I must tell you, that we neither adore crosses 



THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


199 


nor desire them ; you it is, ye Pagans, who worship 
wooden gods, who are the most likely people to adore 
woocien crosses, as being, parts of the same substance 
with your deities. For what else are your ensigns, flags, 
ard standards, but crosses gilt and beautified. Your 
victorious trophies not only represent a simple cross, but 
a cross with a man upon it. The sign of a cross naturally 
appears in a ship, either when she is under sail, or rowed 
with expanded oars like the palm of our hands. Not a 
; ugum erected but exhibits the sign of a cross ; and when 
a pure worshipper adores the true God, with hands ex¬ 
tended, he makes the same figure. Thus you see that the 
sign of the cross has either some foundation in nature, or 
in your owii religion, and therefore ought not to be object¬ 
ed against Christians.”* 

Meagher, a Popish priest, who came over from the 
Roman Catholic communion, and attached himself (for 
what reasons, or with what motives, must rest with him¬ 
self alone) to the ministry of the church of England, fur¬ 
nishes us with the most satisfactory prototype of what he 
had come at last to consider as a corrupt Christianity, in 
the idolatrous worship of the Nile. The ignorant grati¬ 
tude of a superstitious people, while they adored the river 
on whose inundations the fertility of their provinces de¬ 
pended, could not fail of attaching notions of sanctity 
and holiness to the posts that were erected alcnig its 
course, and which, by a transverse beam , indicated the height 
to which, at the spot where the beam was fixed, the waters 
might be expected to rise. This cross at once warned the 
traveller to secure his safety, and formed a standard of 
the value of the land. Other rivers may add to the fertility 
of the country through which they pass, but the Nile is the 
absolute cause of that great fertility of the Lower Egypt, 
which would be all a desert, as bad as the most sandy 
parts of Africa, without this river. It supplies it both 
with soil and moisture, and was therefore gratefully ad¬ 
dressed, not merely as an ordinary river-god, but by its 
express title of the Egyptian Jupiter. The crosses, there¬ 
fore, along the banks of the river, would naturally share 
in the honours of the stream, and be the most expressive 
emblem of good fortune, peace, and plenty. The two 
ideas could never be separated . the fertilizing flood was 

* Reeves's Apologies of the Fathers, &c. vol. 1, p. 139. This Reverend Mr. 
Reeves is unquestionable authority for the text of the orthodox Fathers ; in which 
he could not he wrong. We may be allowed however to question his authority, 
where he would persuade us that, all the heretics ate children. 


200 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


the waters of life , that conveyed every blessing, and even 
existence itself, to the provinces through which they 
flowed. 

One other and most obvious hieroglyph completed the 
expressive allegory : The Demon of Famine , who, should 
the waters fail of their inundation, or not reach the eleva¬ 
tion indicated by the position of the transverse beam 
upon the upright, would reign in all his horrors over their 
desolated lands. This symbolical personification was, 
therefore, represented as a miserable emaciated wretch, 
who had grown up ‘ - as a tender plant, and as a root out 
of a dry ground, who had no form nor comeliness ; and 
when they should see him, there was no beauty that they 
should desire him.” Meagre were his looks ; sharp misery 
had worn him to the bone. His crown of thorns indicated 
the sterility of the territories over which he reigned. The 
reed in his hand, gathered from the banks of the Nile, indi¬ 
cated, that it was only the mighty river, by keeping within 
its banks, and thus withholding its wonted munificence, 
that placed an unreal sceptre in his gripe. He was nailed 
to the cross, in indication of his entire defeat; and the 
superscription of his infamous title, “ This is the king of 
the Jews,” expressively indicated, that Famine , Want , or 
Poverty , ruled the destinies of the most slavish, beggarly, 
and mean-spirited race of men with whom they had the 
honour of being acquainted. 

Madame Dacier, in her edition of Plato, quotes author¬ 
ities in proof that, when Plato visited Egypt, the priests 
showed him the symbols of a religion which, they alleged, 
had continued in observance among their ancestors for 
upwards of ten thousand years. 

From the way in which it was apparent to M. Dupuis, 
that the mythologies and astronomical allegories of the 
ancients were connected with the periodical return of the 
seasons, he was induced to suppose that they must have 
originated in Egypt, where the annual inundation or 
deluge was marked in so peculiar a manner ; and all 
ecclesiastical indications, it must be admitted, point to 
Egypt, as the birth-place and cradle of Religion. Bit it 
has happened not to occur to the reflections of M. Dupuis, 
nor to ecclesiastical writers, that with the variation of a 
few weeks only, the Ganges and the Indus produce pre¬ 
cisely similar phenomena to those of the Nile. And it is 
in a very peculiar manner worthy of consideration, that 
a colony from India arriving in Egypt, so far from finding 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


201 


-heir country’s superstition discouraged by dissimilarity 
of circumstances, would find every circumstance of season 
and climate favourable to it, tending to recall the same 
associations of idea, and to sanctify the same absurdities 
of practice. 

The most learned antiquaries agree in holding it un¬ 
questionable that Egypt was colonized from India. It 
received one of the earliest swarms of emigrants from the 
Bactrian hive. And thus, even if we had not the proof 
we have yet to adduce, of the actual importation by the 
monks of Alexandria, would the superstitions of India 
get-footing in Egypt ; the Chrishna of the Ganges would 
become the Christ of the Nile ; and the priests be left to 
no better expedient to disguise the real origin of their 
allegorical figment, than by transporting him again to the 
banks of the Jordan. The first draft of the mystical 
adventures of Chrishna, as brought from India into Egypt, 
was The Diegesis ; the first version of the Diegesis was 
the Gospel according to the Egyptians ; the first ren¬ 
derings out of the language of Egypt into that of Greece, 
for the purpose of imposing on the nations of Europe, 
were the apocryphal gospels ; the corrected, castigated, and 
authorised versions of these apocryphal compilations were 
the gospels of our four evangelists. 

It should never be forgotten, that the sign of the cross, for 
ages anterior to the Augustan era, was in common use 
among the Gentiles. It was the most sacred symbol of 
Egyptian idolatry. It is on most of the Egyptian obe¬ 
lisks, and was believed to possess all the devil-expelling 
virtues which have since been ascribed to it by Christians. 
The monogram, or symbol of the god Saturn, was the sign 
of the cross, together with a ram’s horn, in indication of 
the Lamb of God. Jupiter also bore a cross with a horn, 
Venus a cross with a circle. The famous Crux ansata is to 
be seen in all the buildings of Egypt ; and the most cele¬ 
brated temples of the idol Chrishna in India, like our 
Gothic cathedrals, were built in the form of crosses. 

The sign of the cross is the very mark which in Ezekiel, 
ix. 4, the Lord commands his messenger to “ go through 
the midst of Jerusalem , and set upon the foreheads of the men 
that sigh , and that cry for all the abominations that be done in 
the midst thereofy But here, as in a thousand other 
places, our English rendering protestantizes , for the purpose 
of disguising the papistical sense, just as their immediate 
predecessors, the paptists, had set them the example ot 


202 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


christianizing whatever came in their way, for the purpose 
of concealing the Pagan origination. 

On a Phoenician medal found in the ruins of Citium, 
and engraved in Dr. Clarke’s Travels, and proved by him 
to be Phoenician, are inscribed not only the cross, but the 
rosary, or string of beads, attached to it, together with 
the identical Lamb of God , which taketh away the sins of the 
world. 

“ How it came to pass,” says the pious Mr. Skelton, “ that 
the Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians, before Christ came 
among us, paid a remarkable veneration to the sign of the 
cross, is to me unknown ; but the fact itself is known. In 
some places this sign was given to men who had been ac¬ 
cused of crime, but acquitted upon trial ; and in Egypt it 
stood for the signification of eternal life.”* 0 Christian 
revelation, what is it that thou hast revealed ? 


THE CHRISTIANS, WORSHIPPERS OF THE GOD SERAPIS. 

But it is more than evidence of this character that 
summons our admiration in the charge of Serapidolatry , 
or the worship of the god Serapis, which was 
brought against the primitive Christians, by no vulgar 
accuser, no bigotted intolerant reviler, but by that philo¬ 
sophic and truth-respecting witness, the emperor Adrian.f 
In a certain letter which he writes, while in the course of 
his travels, to the Consul Servianus, he states, that he 
found the worshippers of the god Serapis in that country 
distinguished by the name of Christians. u Those,” he 
says, “who worship Serapis, are Christians ; and those 
who are especially consecrated to Serapis, call themselves 
the bishops of Christ.” In relief of which charge, the 
learned Kortholt, from whose valuable work, the Paganus 
Obtrectator, I have taken this passage, pleads, and in¬ 
deed it might be so, that when this emperor was in Egypt, 
some of the Christians, actuated by fear, concealing their 
true religion for a season, might have held out an appear¬ 
ance of having embraced the superstition of the Pagans. 
Thus in the Ancient Martyrology, in the history of Epi- 

* Skelton’s Appeal to Common Sense, p. 45. 

t In Epistola quadam ad Servianum cos. Imperator Hadranus prodidit, coluisse 
ipsos in /Egypto Serapidem, sive numen illud iEgyptiorum praecipuurn, quod sub 
bovis specie eos fuisse veneratos, nemo ignorat. Illi ait qui Serapin colunt , 
Christiani sunt , et devoti sunt Serapi, qui se Christi Episcopos dicunt. 
—Kortholti Pagan. Obtrect. de Serapidolatria, lib. 2, c. 5, p. 324.—See this 
article at length in the chapter that adduces the testimony of the emperor Adrian. 



THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


203 


charmus, an Egyptian martyr, it is related that all the 
Christians in Alexandria, upon the coming of a cruel 
judge, either fled away, or pretended to Le still followers 
of the Pagan impiety : and if the approach of a judge only 
could produce this effect, it is no wonder that the coming of 
the emperor himself, and he, as they all knew, being a most 
strenuous asserter of the Gentile superstitions, should 
have a similar effect*. In Socrates’s History of Constan¬ 
tine, he relates how that most holy emperor went about to 
promote the Christian religion, and to banish the rites and 
ceremonies of the Ethnics, he set up his own image in their 
idolatrical temples : and finding that there prevailed a 
general belief of the people of Egypt that it was the god 
Serapis who caused the river Nile to overflow and fer¬ 
tilize their country, in honour of which, a certain ell (the 
upright post with the transverse beam which had been 
used to measure the height and extent of the inundation) 
was annually brought with religious ceremonies into the 
temple of the god Serapis, the emperor commanded that 
ell to be brought into the church of Alexandria. Upon 
this profanation, the Egyptian people had wrought them¬ 
selves up to the too-critical belief, that the Nile would 
resent the indignity, and no more condescend to overflow 
his banks as usual ; thereby subjecting themselves to a 
sort of miracle, which was pretty safely promised them 
beforehand ; for, behold ! on the following year the river 
did not only overflow after his wonted manner, and from 
that time forth keep his course, (0 most miraculous of all 
miracles !) but also did thereby declare unto the world 
that Nilus was accustomed to overflow, not after their su¬ 
perstitious opinion, but by the secret determination of 
Divine Providence.f 

Notwithstanding, however, this adoption of the Pagan 
symbol of the cross into the Christian church, and the 
rapid propagation of Christianity, it was not till after the 
commencement of the fifth century, when the emperor 
Theodosius had given the exterminatory business, by com¬ 
mission, into the hands of Theophilus bishop of Alex¬ 
andria, that it was completed with something like epis¬ 
copal vigour. 4t By the procurement and industry of 
Theophilus the bishop, the emperor commanded that all 
the idol groves of the Ethnics within Alexandria should 
down to the ground, and that Theophilus should oversee 


* Kortholt in codem loco. 


t Socrates Schol. lib. 1, c. 14 


204 


THE SIGN OF THF- CROSS. 


it. Theophilus, being thus authorized, omitted nothing 
that might tend to the reproach and contumely of hea¬ 
thenish ceremonies : down goes the temple of Mithra, 
with all its idoiatrical filth and superstition : down goes the 
god Serapis ; their embrued and bloody mysteries are pub¬ 
licly derided ; their vain and ridiculous practices are pub¬ 
licly ridiculed in the open market-place, to their utter shame 
and ignominy.”* I need not continue this hideous pas¬ 
sage through the description which follows, and was sure 
to follow, of the sanguinary horrors in which it issued. 

To deny that Christianity was and hath been the reli¬ 
gion of the sword from first to last, and hath been propa¬ 
gated and sustained by means of violence and fraud, and 
by no other means, or to assert that there ever was on 
earth, or could have been any other religion that, ever 
made its professors of all sorts and in all ages, one half so 
savage, so bloody, and so wicked, is, as it were, to assert 
any thing, to trample all evidence of fact and history 
under foot, to deny the existence of the sun, to deny that 
the jury who convicted the Rev. Robert Taylor of blas¬ 
pheming their Lord Jesus Christ “ by force and arms,” 
were a perjured jury, to deny that there is any gaol at 
Oakham, any innocent man in that gaol, or truth in truth 
itself. 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS FOUND IN THE TEMPLE OF 
SERAPIS. 

“ In the temple of Serapis, now overthrown and rifled 
throughout, there were found engraven in the stones cer¬ 
tain letters which they call hieroglyphical ; the manner of 
their engraving resembled the form of the cross. The 
which, when both Christians and Ethnics beheld before 
them, every one applied them to his proper religion. The 
Christians affirmed that the cross was a sign or token of 
the passion of Christ, and the proper symbol of their pro¬ 
fession. The Ethnics avouched that therein was con¬ 
tained something in common, belonging as well to Serapis 
as to Christ ; and that the sign of the cross signified one 
thing unto the Ethnics, and another to the Christians.— 
While they contended thus about the meaning of these 
hieroglyphical letters,! many of the Ethnics became Chris 

* Socrates Schol. lib. 5, c. 16. 

t We see at this day, without any countenance of Scripture, the letters I.N.R.I 
engraved in all our idoiatrical representations of the crucifixion. It is obvioua 
that they would bear any other reading as well as that which Christian conceit may 
give them. 



THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


206 


tians, for they perceived at length the sense and meaning 
of those letters, and that they prognosticated salvation, 

and LIFE TO COME.”* 

This most important evidence of the utter indifference 
between Christianity and any, even the grossest forms of 
the ancient Paganism, is supplied by a Christian historian ; 
and independent of its fairness, as taken from such a 
source, and its inherent versimilitude, is corroborated by 
a parallel passage from the ecclesiastical history of Sozo- 
menes, who, about the year 443, wrote the history of the 
church from the reign of Constantine the Great to that of 
the younger Theodosius. He is speaking of the temple of 
the god Serapisf— u It is reported that when this temple 
was destroyed, there appeared some of those characters 
called hieroglyphics, surrounding the sign of the cross , in 
engraven stGnes ; and that, by the skilful in these matters, 
these hieroglyphics were held to have signified this inscrip¬ 
tion —the life to cckme ! And this became a pretence 
for becoming Christians to many of the Grecians, because 
there were even other letters which signified this sacred 
end when this character appeared.” 

Thus in every genuine historical document, we are con¬ 
tinually met by evidence of the superfluous prodigality of 
miracles, and that offence against the laws of the drama, 
as well as of historical probability, which makes a god ap¬ 
pear where there was no knot worthy of a god. The Pa¬ 
gans, so far from needing miracles to convert them, were 
at all times ready to embrace any new faith whatever : no 
trick could be too gross to fail of success on their easy cre¬ 
dulity. They really had not the capacity of inflicting 
martyrdom : they were ready to be winked and whistled 
into Christianity.—Socrates continues his acconnt : 

* Ev is Tco vain rov Ssyantiog Xvousvov, xai yv/uvovusvov , tjvQ^To yQatinara syxs- 
yaoayusva roig Xt-dotg, rut xaXovusrut si(joyXvtptxu>. Hoar is ot yuyaxii^sg oraX^utv 
syorisg rvnovg. Tovrovg oQutvreg X^tariavoi rs xai EXXyvsg, rtj tita, sxajsyot 
OQtjgxsia n^oOt^ioiovro Xiuartavot ftsv yay aiiustov rov xara XQinrov oojrtjQivtiovg 
naSovg strut Xsyovrsg rov aravQov, otxstov strai rov yayuxrijQa trout tor. EXXt/rsg 
it n xotvov X()iciru > xut Xsgani itsXsvov, si o orav(jostitjg yaouxrtjo , uXXo nsv 
XQiortavoic , aXXo is EXXtjtn noistrai to (iv^fioXov. Tovrtov is antptoftt^rsriisvmv, 
Ttvsg, nov EXXt]vutv rut X()irfriavio^u) uQoctsXdovrsg , ra ttQoyXvtftixu rs y^uft/nara 
tutorufisvot, itsQinp'svorrsc rov aravQostit] yayaxrtjQa. EXsyov Oiptatvsiv Lun/v 
EusQyo^tsvrjv. —Socrat. Eccl. Hist. lib. 5, c. 17. 

t <bam is rov vaov xa&atoovusrov rovrov, rtva rutv xaXovtisvutr yaoaxTrjootv, 
oravout otjus'cj sptpsQstg, syxsyaoayftsvotg rotg Xtdoig avatpartjvai . Tlao eutnr^piorotv 
is ra rotais sQptp’iv&stOav Optjavat ravrtjv rtjv y(tatpijr ZiiHN ETIEPXOMENHN 
rovro is nyotpaotv Xotariavtrrpov noXXotg yersn-dai rcov sXXtjviarwv: xadon xai 
y^a/tijuara srsQa rovro to siqov rsXog egsortv siijXov , tjrtxa ovrof o ya()uXnj(t (part] 
—Lib. 2, cap. 15. 


19 


206 


THE SIGN OF THE CROSS. 


“The Christians perceiving that this made very much 
for their religion, made great account thereof, and were 
not a little proud of it. When as by other hieroglyphical 
setters it was gathered, that the temple of Serapis should 
go to ruin when the sign of the cross therein engraven 
came to light (by that life to come was foreshewed), 
many more embraced the Christian religion, confessed 
their sins, and were baptized. Thus much have I learned 
of the cross.”* * * § —And thus far quote I from the Ecclesias¬ 
tical History of Socrates, a Christian historian, who lived 
and wrote about a. d. 412, the contemporary of Damasus 
bishop of Rome, of Chrysostom of Constantinople, and of 
the events which he has here recorded. Though the god 
Serapis stood in so immediate a relation to the Nile, his 
worship was by no means confined to Egypt ; he was wor¬ 
shipped not only in Egypt and in Greece, but also at 
Rome, and sometimes considered as one and the same as 
Jupiter Ammon, sometimes as identical with Pluto, Bac¬ 
chus, iEsculapius, Osiris,f and Jesus Christ. It is certain, 
however, that his most magnificent temple was at Alexan¬ 
dria in Egypt, whence all our most distinguished Christian 
Fathers and writers derived their education ; that the 
bishops of Serapis, as they alone were justly entitled to 
be called bishops of Alexandria, while Alexandria was a 
Pagan city, yet called themselves bishops of Christ ; and 
though Christianity can in no reasonable sense be said to 
have been established in Alexandria while the temple of 
Serapis remained—and Tillemont admits that the very 
first Christian church that was ever built, of which history 
gives us any certain and express information, was founded 
by Gregory the wonder-worker, a. d. 244, or after that 
timef,—yet have we an uninterrupted succession of bish¬ 
ops of Alexandria from the evangelist Mark, who we are 
required to believe was the first of them, downwards. The 
Jews, it seems, took Serapis to be identical with the patri¬ 
arch Joseph the son of Sarah.§ 

In all the representations of the crucified King of the 
Jews that have come down to us, the essential requisites 
of the Egyptian hieroglyphic have been most religiously 
preserved. The ribs of the figure are almost breaking 
through his skin, and it seems doubtful whether the being 

* Lib. 5, c. 18, p. 348. London Ed. anno 1649. 

t Pomey De Diis Indiget, p. 268. 

t Quoted in Lardner’s Credibility, vol i, p. 594. 

§ Quasi ano. 


THE TAURIBOLIA. 


201 


so represented had died of hunger before he was nailed to 
the cross, or had expired under the inconveniences of that 
uncouth appointment. But the most extraordinary phce- 
nomenon attending this mystical personification, is, that 
his hieroglyphical history will be found to dove-tail ex¬ 
actly into all the various and apparently contradictory 
developements of the Christian theology. Thus the cross 
was blessed , but the figure upon it was made a curse ; and 
accordingly, as it was the cross, or the crucified, that was 
referred to, so shall we find it, even in the same writings, 
spoken of as the blessed cross or the accursed cross, as a 
badge of honour or of shame, of joy or of sorrow, of tri ¬ 
umph or of humiliation. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

THE TAURIBOLIA 

Were expiatory sacrifices, which were renewed every 
twenty years, and conferred the highest degree of holiness 
and sanctification on the partakers of those holy mysteries. 
Prudentius informs us, that in these religious ceremonies 
the Pagan priests, or whoever was ambitious of obtaining 
a mystical regeneration, excavated a pit, into which he 
descended. The pit was then covered over with planks, 
which were bored full of holes, so that the blood and what 
not of the goat, bull, or ram that was sacrificed upon them, 
might trickle through the holes upon the body of the per¬ 
son beneath ; who, having been thus sanctified, and bom 
again , was obliged ever after to walk in newness of life’; to 
maintain a conduct of the most inflexible virtue ; to shew 
forth God's praise , not only with his lips , but in his life , by giving 
up himself to God's service ; and by walking before him in holiness 
and righteousness all his days. 

Potter, however, in his Antiquities, informs us, that the 
Athenians had a less offensive way than this to convey the 
spiritual blessedness of regeneration. The person desirous 
of it, whether male or female, was slipped through a cha¬ 
racteristic part of the female habiliments, and thenceforth 
recognized as one who had been born again. The only ob¬ 
servable coincidence of the Tauribolia with the great 
sacrifice of Christianity, consists in the fact, that the 
grossest sense of the terms in which the Pagan obscenity 


BAPTISM. 


208 


can be described, finds its excuse, if not its sanctification, 
by its adoption into the text of our New Testament, 
where we read of u the blood of sprinkling , that speakclh bet¬ 
ter things than the blood of Abelf (Heb. xii 24) ; and 
“ sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,” (1 Pet. j. 2;, 
£C And if the biood of bulls and goats, and the what-not of 
an heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the puri ¬ 
fying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ 
purge your consciences.” 

Thus precisely the same effects of an imaginary spirit¬ 
ual regeneration are ascribed to precisely the same nasty 
ingredients— blood , fyc .—used in precisely the same mode 
of application— sprinkling. It may be that we, of more 
civilized times, and more exalted ideas, have acquired the 
art of producing refined sweets out of these grossnesses; 
but we have no right to forget that our chemistry was en¬ 
tirely unknown to those to whom this language was at first 
propounded. They who were to be converted by it from 
their Paganism into the new religion, must have had the 
one put upon them in the place of the other, without their 
ever being able to perceive the difference. 


CHAPTER XXXI. 


BAPTISM. 


The Baptae, or Baptists, were an effeminate and debauch¬ 
ed order of priests, belonging to the goddess Cotytto, the 
unchaste Venus, in opposition and contradistinction to the 
celestial deity of that name, who was ever attended with 
the Graces, and whose worship tended to elevate and ex¬ 
alt the moral character, and to sanctify the commerce o/ 
generation with all that is delicate in sentiment and tender 
in affection. No worshipper of Venus could endure the 
thought of impurity. Neglect of the holiness which her 
rites enjoined was ever punished with degradation of mind 
and loss of beauty and health.* The Baptists are satirized 
by Juvenal. They take their name from their stated dip¬ 
pings and washings, by way of purification, though it seems 

* The man after Gods own heart exhibits himself as an awful instance of the 
vengeance of Venus on one who turned the grace of God (for Venus was addressed, 
“ Be thou God,” or Goddess) into lasciviousness: “ My wounds stink and are 
corrupt, through my lasciviousness ; neither is there any rest in my bones, by rea 
ion of my sin.”—Psalm xxxviii. 


BAPTISTS. 


209 

they were dipped in warm water, and were to be made 
clean and pare, that they might wallow and defile them¬ 
selves the more, as their nocturnal rites consisted chiefly 
of lascivious dances and other abominations. The Bap¬ 
tists, or Anabaptists, as they are called, continue as an 
order of religionists among Christians, under precisely the 
same name. The licentious character of the order of reli¬ 
gionists from whom they are descended, has received its 
correction from the improved intelligence, and, conse¬ 
quently, improved morality of the times. But the most 
unquestionable evidence confirms the fact, that the Chris¬ 
tian Baptists of Germany, in the fourteenth century, and 
sometime before and after, came short of no impurities 
that could have characterized the Antinomian priests of 
Cotytto. 


ASTROLOGICAL CHARACTER OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 

The character of John the Baptist , like all the other 
personages of the Gospel story, presents precisely the 
same analogy to the system of astronomy which we trace 
in every personification of the ancient heathenism. Like 
all the other genii or saints, he presides over his particular 
day, or, rather, in mythological language, is that day ; and, 
as if no room for doubt as. to his identity should be left, the 
calendars attached to our church of Englahd prayer-book 
have fixed that day as the 24th of June, the season pecu¬ 
liarly adapted to baptisms or bathings , precisely the day on 
which the sun has exhibited one degree of descent from 
his highest elevation, and which stands directly over and 
looks down upon the 25th of December, the day fixed for 
the birth of Christ, when he first appears to have gained 
one degree of ascent from his lowest declension. In exact 
accordance with which astronomical positions, we find 
the genius of the 24th of June (St. John) looking down 
upon the genius of the 25th of December (the new born 
Jesus), and saying, “ He must increase, but I must de¬ 
crease,” (John iii. 30), as the days begin to lengthen from 
the 25th of December, and to decrease or shorten from the 
24th of June downwards, till they reach the shortest, of 
which the genius or saint is the unbelieving Thomas. 

The learned and ingenious historian of the Celtic 
Druids, of whose labours I have greatly availed myself, 
maintains that u the Essenes were descended from the 
piophet Elijah, and the Carmelite monks from the Essenes, 
19 * 



BAPTISTS. 


210 

whose monasteries were established before the Christian 
era ; that these monks, finding that from time immemorial, 
a certain day had been held sacred to the god Sol, the &un, 
as his birth-day, and that this god was distinguished by the 
epithet The Lord, persuaded themselves that this Lord 
could be no other than their Lord God : whereupon they 
adopted the religious rites of this Lord, and his supposed 
birth-day, December the 25th, became a Christian festival, 
Paganism being thus spliced and amalgamated into Chris* 
tianity.” I only take the liberty of differing from this good 
Christian writer so far as to deny that there could be any 
splicing or amalgamation, where it was all one piece. The 
great sophism of Christianity consists in the pretence of a 
distinction where there was no difference. 


ST. THOMAS 

Stands on the 21st of December, in all the darkness of 
unbelief, and doubting whether his divine master, the sun , 
will ever rise again. In accordance with which astronom¬ 
ical sense, and in no other sense that divines can agree up¬ 
on, we find Jesus, the genius of the Sun, in the 25th of 
Dec. telling the Pharisees, tc Your father Abraham rejoic¬ 
ed to see my day , and he saw it, and was glad.” (John viii. 
56.) It was the evident object of the writers of the sacred 
allegory, as it was of the mystagogues and contrivers of 
the Pagan system, to give an appearance of real person¬ 
ages, and of actual adventures and discourses, to the pros - 
opopeia , under which they emblemized physical and moral 
truths. So that it is only incidentally, and when they are 
somewhat off their guard, that they let fall expressions en¬ 
tirely out of keeping with their general tenor ; and fur¬ 
nish to a wary observance, the key to the occult and real 
sense which eludes, and was intended to elude the tracta¬ 
ble simplicity of the faithful. At the same time, nothing is 
more obvious, than that the failure of invention, or fissures 
in the weaving of the allegpry, would be from time to time 
patched up with pieces of real circumstances, actual ad¬ 
ventures, and indistinct reminiscences of conversations 
that had indeed occurred ; till the fabricators themselves 
had become unable to distinguish what they had remem¬ 
bered from what they had invented. But who, but one 
who held it a virtue to be stupid, could drop the clue to 
the allegory put into his hand by such passages as 
(Eph. iv. 9), u ]^ow that he ascended, what is it but that 



BAPTISTS. 


211 


lie also descended first into the lower parts of the earth ? 
He that descended is the same also that ascended ?” This 
descent into the lower parts of the earth , will apply to no sense 
of ine actual burial of a man upon a level with the earth’s 
surface, or not ten feet below it, but is strictly applicable 
tc the sun’s descent below the horizon, by an equable di¬ 
vision of day and night, “ to give light to them that sit in dark - 
r.cos, and in the valley of the shadow of death.” 

The Pagan philosophers pretended that their theology, 
and the genealogy of their gods, did originally, in an alle¬ 
gorical sense, mean the several parts of nature and the 
universe. Cicero gives a large account of this, and tells us, 
that even the impious fables relating to the deities include 
in them a good physical meaning. Thus, when Saturn was 
said to have devoured his children, it was to be understood 
of Time, which is properly said to devour all things. u We 
know,” says this great heathen, “ that the shapes of all 
the gods, their age, habits, and ornaments, nay, their very 
genealogy, marriages, and every thing relating to them, 
hath been delivered in the exact resemblance to human 
weakness. It is,” he adds, “ the height of folly to believe 
such absurd and extravagant things.” 

Did any of them ever believe any thing more absurd ? 
Did the annals of human folly or madness ever record any 
thing more extravagant, than that new born children 
should be considered to have offended God, or that a full- 
grown fool should be believed to please him, by washing 
his dirty hide, and suffering a gawky idiot to talk nonsense 
over the ceremony ? 

As an allegorical sense was the apology offered for 
the manifest absurdities of Paganism, and an allegorical 
sense is challenged for the contents of the New Testa¬ 
ment, not only by the early Fathers, but by and in the text 
of that New Testament itself,* can it be denied that both 
alike are allegorical ? And both being confessedly alle¬ 
gorical, the innumerable instances of perfect resemblance 
between them are a competent proof that the one is but a 
modification or improved edition of the other, and that 
there never was any real or essential difference between 
them. 

* Our sufficiency is of God, who also hath made us able ministers of the New 
Testament, not of the letter, but of the spirit ; for the letter killeth, but the spirit 
"iveth life.”—2 Cor. iii. 6. 


212 


THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES ; OR, SACRAMENT OF THE 

lord’s supper : 

Was the most august of all the Pagan ceremonies cele* 
orated, more especially by the Athenians, every fifth year, 
in honour of Ceres, the goddess of corn, who, in allegorical 
language, had given us her flesh to eat; as Bacchus, the 
god of wine, in a like sense, had given us his blood to 
drink ; though both these mysticisms are claimed by Jesus 
Christ, (John vi. 55.) They were celebrated every fifth 
year at Eleusis, a town of Attica, from whence their name ; 
which name, however, both in the word and in the signi¬ 
fication of it, is precisely the same as one of the titles of 
Jesus Christ.* From these ceremonies, in like manner, is 
derived the very name attached to our Christian sacrament 
cS the Lord’s supper—“ those holy mysteries and not one 
or two, but absolutely all and everyone of the observances 
used in our Christian solemnity. Very many of our forms 
of expression in that solemnity are precisely the same as 
those that appertained to the Pagan rite. Nor, notwith¬ 
standing all we hear of the rapid propagation of Christian¬ 
ity, and the conversion of Constantine, were these heath¬ 
en mysteries abolished, till the reign of the elder Theodo¬ 
sius, who had the honour of instituting the Inquisition, 
which was so great an improvement upon them, in their 
stead, about the year 440. 

Mosheim acknowledges, that “ the primitive Christiansf 
gave the name of mysteries to the institutions of the Gospel, 
and decorated particularly the holy sacrament with that 
title ; that they used the very terms employed in the heathen 
mysteries, and adopted some of the rites and ceremonies 
nfi which those renowned mysteries consisted. This imi¬ 
tation began in the eastern provinces ; but, after the time 
of Adrian, who first introduced the mysteries among the 
i .arms, it was followed by the Christians who dwelt in the 
western parts of the empire. A great part, therefore, oi 
tne service of the church in this century (the second) had 
a certain air of the heathen mysteries, and resembled them 
considerably in many particulars.” 

* JBv ti o tQxontvog —“ Art thou the he that should come ?”—John xi. 3. 
the Advent, or coming , from the common root. 

f Mosheim, vol. 1, p. 204. 


THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 


213 


ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES CHRISTIAN SACRAMENT 


" Compared. 


1. a But. as the benefit of 
initiation was great, such as 
were convicted of witchcraft, 
murder, even though uninten¬ 
tional, or any other heinous 
crimes, were debarred from those 
mysteries .”—BtlVs Pcmth. in lo¬ 
co quo res. 

2. At their entrance, purify¬ 
ing themselves by washing their 
hands in holy water, they were 
at the same time admonished to 
present themselves with pure 
minds, without which the exter¬ 
nal cleanness of the body would 
by no means be accepted. 

3. The priests who officiated 
in these sacred solemnities, were 
called Hierophants, or revealers 
of holy things. 

4. After this, they were dis¬ 
missed in these words :— 

Koyl Ofxna%. 


1. " For as the benefit is great, 
if, with a true penitent heart and 
lively faith, we receive that holy 
sacrament, &c. if any be an open 
and notorious evil-liver, or hath 
done wrong to his neighbour, 
&c. that he presume not to come 
to the Lord’s table.”— Commu¬ 
nion Service. 

2. See the fonts of holy water 
at the entrance of every catholic 
chapel in Christendom for the 
purpose. 

Let us draw near with a true 
heart, having our hearts sprink¬ 
led from an evil conscience, and 
our bodies washed with pure 
water.—Heb. x. 22. 

3. Let a man so account of us 
as of the ministers of Christ, and 
stewards of the mysteries of 
God.—1 Cor. iv. 1. 

4. In English, thus :— 

The Lord be with you. 


If it were possible to be mistaken in the significancy of 
the monogram of Bacchus, the I H S, to whose honour, in 
conjunction with Ceres, these holy mysteries were distinc¬ 
tively dedicated, the insertion of those letters in a ciicie 
of rays of glory , over the centre of the holy table, is a a 
hieroglyphic that depends not on the fallibility of trans¬ 
lation, but conveys a sense that cannot be misread by any 
eye on which the sun’s light shines. I H S are Greek 
characters, by ignorance taken for Roman letters ; and 
Yf.s, which is the proper reading of those letters, is none 
other than the very identical name of Bacchus, that k, 
of the Sun, of which Bacchus was one of the most dis¬ 
tinguished personifications ; And Yes, or Ies, with the 
Latin termination us, added to it, is Jesus. The surround¬ 
ing rays of glory, as expressive of the sun’s light, make 
the identity of Christ and Bacchus as clear as the sun. 

These rays of glory are a sort of universal letter that 
cannot be misread or misinterpreted ; no written lan- 



214 


THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 


guage, no words that man could utter, could so distinctly, 
so expressively say that.it was the Sun, and nothing but 
the Sun, that was so emblemized. And these rays are seen 
alike surrounding the heads of the Indian Chreeshna, as 
he is exhibited in the beautiful plate engraved by Barlow, 
and inscribed to the Archbishop of Canterbury ; round the 
Grecian Apollo ; and in all our pictures of Jesus Christ. 
Nay, more—the epithet The Lord, as we have seen, was 
peculiarly and distinctively appropriate to the Sun, and to 
all personifications of the Sun ; so that the Sun and the 
Lord were perfectly synonymous, and Sun's day and the 
Lord's day the same to every nation on whom his light hath 
shone. 

As it was especially to the honour of Bacchus, as the 
Sun, that the mysteries were celebrated, so the bread and 
mu '■ which the Lord (or Sun) had commanded to be received , 
v. called the Lord's supper. Throughout the whole cere¬ 
mony, the name of the Lord was many times repeated, 
anu ins brightness or glory, not only exhibited to the eye 
by f l e rays which surrounded his name, but was made the 
peculiar theme or subject of their triumphant exultation. 
Now bring we up our most sacred Christian ordinance ! 
That r Iso is designated, as the ceremony in honour of 
Bacchus was, the Lord's supper. In that also all other 
(mtheis of the deity so honoured, are merged in the 
uccuiiar appropriation of the term The Lord. It would 
tound irreverently, even in Christian ears, to call it 
Jesus’s supper, or Jesus’s table ; it is always termed the 
Lord's . And as in the Lord’s supper of the ancient idol- 
ators at Eleusis, it was the benefit which they received 
the sun’s rays or glory that were commemorated, so 
u: (.ur Christian orgies, it is the glory or brightness of the 
f -bD;e deity which is peculiarly symbolized and honoured. 
A poor Jewish peasant never was, nor could have been 
caiied the Lord. Let us take words according to the 
r/ktuning of words, and not suffer our reason to be sophisti¬ 
cated by mere sounds, which have in themselves no 
meaning at all, and we shall see that our English word 
Glory is but a ridiculously sonorous mouthing of its 
original, Clary. The exact meaning of clary is bright - 
ness ; the attribute of brightness is peculiarly characteristic 
of the Sun : use only the meaning of the word, instead of 
its unmeaning sound, wherever it occurs, and the heliola 
trous sense and origination of our Christian Communion 
Service, and its absolute identity with the Pagan myste- 


THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 


215 


ries of Eleusis, can no longer evade detection ; for thus 
run the Eleusinian and the Christian mysteries, like 
linked horses in a chariot, step for step, and phrase for 
phrase, together. 


THE DOXOLOGY. 

u Brightness be to God on high ! We praise thee> we 
brighten thee (that is, we say that thou art bright), we 
give thee thanks for thy great brightness. Heaven and 
earth are full of thy brightness. Brightness be to thee. 
O Lord (that is, O Sun) most high !” 

Is not this the real, the only sense, of both mysteries : 
If it be not, our ignorance has, at least, one consolation : 
we shall not have to quarrel with any body who can ‘‘dl 
us what is! Safe enough are we from any thing like an 
idea on the part of the partakers of those holy mysteries : 
a sensible person who had received the sacrament, might 
be shown for a week afterwards at the menagerie. 


PAGAN MYTHOLOGY CHRISTIAN REVELATION 

Compared. 

1. Titan , the eldest of the 1. Satan, the eldest of the 


children of heaven, yielded to 
Saturn the kingdom of the world, 
provided he raised no more 
children ; but on the birth of 
Jupiter, he rebelled, and raising 
war in heaven, prevailed not, 
neither was his place found any 
more in heaven. He and all 
his host of rebel angels were 
cast out, and imprisoned under 
mountains heaped upon them. 
Their vain attempts to rise is the 
supposed cause of earthquakes 
and volcanoes. 

“ Or from our sacred hill, with fury 
thrown, 

Deep in the dark Tartarean gulph 
shall groan.” 

Jupiter's threat to the inferior gods, 
Iliad , 6. Pope's Version. 

2. Latona was driven out of 
heaven, and having been got 
with child by Jupiter, without 
knowledge of a man, she brought 
forth her son, our Lord and Sa¬ 
viour Phoebus-Apollo, u the 


children of heaven, yielded to 
Jehovah the kingdom of the 
world, provided he raised no 
more children ; but on the birth 
of Messiah, he rebelled, a::d 
raising war in heaven, “ pre¬ 
vailed not, neither was his place 
found any more in heaven,” 
(Rev. xii. 8.) “ And the an¬ 

gels which kept not their first 
estate, he hath reserved in ever¬ 
lasting chains under darkness, 
unto the judgment of the great 
day.”—Jude 6. 

u God spared not the angels 
that sinned, but cast them down 
to Hetty —2 Pet. ii. 4. Note 
well ! the original word signifies 
Tartarus. 

2. Eve was driven out of Par 
adise, and in her representative 
Mary, u seeing she knew not a 
man,” brought forth her son, 
our Lord Jesus Christ, “ being 
the brightness of his glory, and 



216 


THE ELEUSINIAN MYSTERIES. 


PAGAN MYTHOLOGY CHRISTIAN REVELATION 

Compared . 


brightness of his father’s glory,” 
and the express image of his 
person. She was, at the time 
of her delivery, refused a place 
where to bring forth, and was 
persecuted all her life by the 
dragon Python. 

3. Her son at length slew the 
Pj thon, and was by Jupiter ex¬ 
ited with great triumph unto his 
kingdom in heaven. 

•Another edition. 

■i. Jupiter transforms himself 
IlLc a &wan, and in that shape 
enjoy3 Leda, a married woman, 
who became with child by him. 

5. The incarnation of Viche- 
nou. 

6. The Logos, or Word of 
God, an epithet of Mercury.— 
Justin Martyr's Apology. 

7. XJnum pro multis dabitur 
cvp.i, (Virgil.) — i. e. One head 
si i 7 ! be given as the redemption 
fo f ' many. 

8. “ The Vandals had a god 
called Triglaf ; one of those 
was found at Herlungerberg, 
near Brandenburg. He was re¬ 
presented with three heads.— 
This was apparently the Trinity 
of Paganism." Such are the 
very words of the orthodox 
Christian, Parkhurst 


the express image of his person,” 
(Heb. i. 3,) “ she laid him in a 
manger, because there was no 
room for them in the inn,” (Luke 
ii. 7.) u And the dragon perse¬ 
cuted the woman which brought 
forth the man child.”—Rev. xii. 
13. 

3. And the seed of the wo¬ 
man bruised the serpent’s head, 
u and her child was caught up 
to God, and to his throne.”— 
Rev. xii. 5. 

Another edition. 

4. Jehovah, in the shape of a 
pigeon, obumbrates the wife of 
Joseph, who becomes with child 
by him.—Luke i* 

5. The incarnation of Christ 

6. The Logos, or Word of 
God, an epithet of Jesus Christ. 
— St. John's Gospel. 

7. “ So Christ was once of¬ 
fered to bear the sins of many.” 
Heb. ix. 28. 

8. “ To God the Father, Son, 
And Spirit, ever blest— 

Eternal Three in One— 

All worship be addrest.” 

Such are the words of the or¬ 
thodox Christian Doxology. 


* The editors of the Unitarian New Version of the New Testament, who very 
modestly wish to shovel all these spurcities and salacities out of the sacred text, 
have the impudence to tell us, in a note, that they were interpolated to lessen 
the odium attached to Christianity, from its founder being a crucified Jew, and 
to elevate him to the dignity of the heroes and demi-gods of the heathen mytho¬ 
logy. So then, the argument of the primitive Christians with their Pagan op¬ 
ponents was good-natured enough —If you won't adopt our religion,—why t 
we'll adopt yours. 


PYTHAGORAS 


217 


PAGAN MYTHOLOGY CHRISTIAN REVELATION 


9. The ancient Gauls had an 
idol, under the name Hesus, 
who, the mythologists say, an¬ 
swered to the Roman Mars, or 
Lord of Hosts, to whom they 
used to sacrifice their captives 
taken in war ; of whom Lucan , 
book 1, line 445. 

Horrensque feris altaribus Hesus ! 

Hesus , with cruel altars, hor¬ 
rid god ! 


9. The difference between 
Hesus and Jesus is but a breath. 

“ The Lord of Hosts, he is 
the King of Glory.”—Psalm 
xxiv. 10. 

“ Thou art the King of Glory, 
0 Christ !”— Te Deum , 14. 

u Thou shalt bruise them with 
a rod of iron, and break them in 
pieces, like a potter’s vessel.”— 
Psalm ii. 9. 

u And he was clothed in a 
vesture dipped in blood.”—Rev. 
xix. 13. 


“ Thus have I attempted to trace, with a confidence 
continually increasing as I advanced, a parallel between 
the gods adored in Greece, Italy, and India ; but which 
was the original system, and which the copy, I will not 
presume to decide. I am persuaded, however, that a 
connection existed between the old idolatrous nations ol 
Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before the birth of 
Moses.” 

So concludes the pious Sir William Jones, Asiatic Re¬ 
searches, vol. 1, p. 271. The reader is to conclude as he 
pleases. 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

PYTHAGORAS, B. C. 586. 

As all ideas of man are derived from his senses, and 
consequently may be traced to their origination from that 
their only source, the gods and goddesses, or any god that 
conceit could form to itself, would still admit of being re¬ 
ferred to its primordial type in something the like of which 
experience had first been impressed on the senses. Hav¬ 
ing found innumerable pre-existent models of the imagin¬ 
ary supernatural character of Christ, we discover in the 
Samian sage every thing that could have furnished forth 
the calmer and more philosophic personification of Unita¬ 
rian Christianity, the mere man Jesus. 

Pythagoras, as his name signifies, had been born under 
precisely the circumstances ascribed to Jesus Christ ; 
having been the object of a splendid dispensation of pro 
20 




218 


PYTHAGORAS. 


phecy, and had his birth foretold by Apollo Pythus; his 
soul having- descended from its primawal state of compan¬ 
ionship with the divine Apollo, “ the glory which he had with 
the father before the world was.” —John vii. 5. 

Divesting his story, however, of the supernatural super¬ 
structure that could be as easily pretended for any one 
extraordinary character as for any other ; it remains his¬ 
torically certain, that this first of philosophers, and most 
distinguished individual of the human race, was a real 
character, and was born at Samos, in Greece, (from 
whence his epithet, the Samian sage,) in the third year 
of the 48th Olympiad—that is, 586 years before the epocha 
of the pretended birth of his Galilean rival. He was edu¬ 
cated under Pherecydes, of Syrus, of whom Cicero speaks, 
as the first who inculcated the doctrine of the distinct 
existence and immortality of the soul ; and afterwards be¬ 
came the distinguished pupil of the priests of Egypt.— 
The limits of this work admit not of our dwelling on any 
further particulars of his history, than those in which he 
presents the most clear and unquestionable type of the 
character afterwards set forth to the world under the pros - 
opopeia generally designated as Jesus Christ. 

Pythagoras is most characteristically associated with 
the doctrine which he taught, and which takes its name 
from him,—-the Pythagorean Metempsychosis.* After his 
master had broached the notion of the existence and im¬ 
mortality of souls, it was but a second and a necessary 
step, to find some employment for them ; and that of their 
eternal migration from one body to another, after every 
effort that imagination can make, will be found at least as 
consistent with reason as that of their existence at all, and 
that in which the mind, after all its plunges into the vast 
unknown, must ultimately acquiesce.f 

“ Eternity ! thou pleasing, dreadful thought ! 

Through what variety of untried being, 

Through what new scenes and changes must we pass ! 

The wide, th’ unbounded prospect lies before us ; 

But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it ! 

Addison's Cato. 

Pythagoras, however, left behind him more substantial 
evidence of real wisdom, and of actual benefits conferred 

* MtTsfixfJvxuMfig, the transmigration of the soul out of one body into another, 
from iistu and ipu/rj, the life, the breath, the wit, the soul, the je-ne-sais-quoi. 

t The Metempsychosis overthrows the doctrine of the everlasting torments of 
hell-fire ; and, on that account, is less congenial to Christian dispositions. 


PYTHAGORAS. 


219 


upon mankind, than were ever challenged for the imagin¬ 
ary successor of his honours. He is generally and indispu¬ 
tably held to be the discoverer of the celebrated forty- 
ninth theorem of the first book of Euclid ; which demon¬ 
strates that the square of the hypothenuse of the right- 
angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of its 
sides ; and to have first laid down that theory of the 
planetary system which, after having been laid aside, or 
forgotten through all the intervening ages of Christian 
ignorance, has been revived, and shown to be the true 
and real system, by the discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, 
and subsequent demonstrations of all succeeding astrono¬ 
mers. Had any thing like evidence of this nature been 
adducible for the pretensions of Jesus of Nazareth, there 
would not have been an infidel in Christendom. 

Pythagoras was a teacher of the purest system of 
morals ever propounded to man. He has the merit (let 
grateful women apportion his praise) of having first 
claimed and achieved for the fair sex, their distinction of 
dress from that of men, and their title to that more tender 
respect and exalted courtesy which none worthy the name 
of men will ever withhold from them. He abated the 
ferocity of war, and taught and induced mankind to 
extend feelings of humanity and tenderness to the whole 
brute creation. His personal beauty surpassed whatever 
else had been seen in humanity ; his voice was the rich¬ 
est music that ever sounded on the human ear, and his 
powers of suasion were absolutely irresistible. The 
Christian Fathers taunt his vanity, and ridicule his claims 
to supernatural memory ; but it is certain that Pythagoras 
lias himself ascribed his memory to the especial favour 
of heaven, and held the happiest endowments ever 
possessed by man with the utmost meekness in himself, 
and to the greatest possible profit to mankind. His 
notions of the Deity will challenge comparison with 
any that enrich the pages of Christian Scripture. The 
principle of self-examination , which he inculcated on his 
disciples, as we see in the golden verses ascribed to him, is 
far from being compatible with so proud a spirit, as his 
mighty reason to be proud might tempt our envy to 
ascribe to him ; or if the genuineness of those verses, 
which at any rate are from no Christian mint, be dis¬ 
putable, the short and pithy axiom which Clemens Alex- 
andrinus acknowledges to have been characteristically 
/us, must for ever number him among those who have 
thought of the Deity so as none of the human race, whe- 


220 


PYTHAGORAS. 


ther without the aid of revelation or with it, have e’ver 
thought more worthily—“ None but God is wise,” said 
Pythagoras. 

Pythagoras himself was certainly not the inventor of 
the doctrine of the Metempsychosis, but learned it of the 
Egyptian monks, in whose college he was long a resident, 
and of whose ecclesiastical fraternity he was unquestion¬ 
ably a member; he only inculcated this doctrine more 
earnestly, and endeavoured to weld it, as he did other su¬ 
perstitions which he found too deeply rooted to be eradi¬ 
cated, to useful, or at least innocent and inoffensive ap¬ 
plications. 

The Christian doctrines of original sin, and of the 
necessity of being born again , are evident misunderstand¬ 
ings of the doctrine of the Pythagorean Metempsychosis, 
which constituted the inward spiritual grace , or essential 
significancy of the Eleusinian mysteries ; as the classical 
reader will find those mysteries sublimely treated of in the 
6th book of Virgil’s jEneid. The term of migration dur¬ 
ing which the soul of man was believed to expiate in 
other forms the deeds done in its days of humanity, was 
exactly a thousand years; after which, drinking of the wa¬ 
ters of Lethe, which caused a forgetfulness of all that had 
passed, it was ferryed down the river, or sailed under the 
conduct of Mercury, the Logos, or Word of God , and 
“ wind and tide serving,” was so borne or carried, and 
born of water and wind* and launched again into humanity, 
for a fresh experiment of moral probation. Hence souls 
that had acquitted themselves but ill in their previous 
existence, were believed to be born in sin, and to have 
brought with them the remains of a corrupt nature derived 
from their former state, for which they were still further 
punished by the calamitous circumstances in which they 
were born, or the difficulties with which they should still 
have to contend, till they should ultimately recover them¬ 
selves to virtue and happiness. This was the doctrine, and 
nothing but this, which Christ is represented as endea¬ 
vouring to inculcate upon Nicodemus the ruler of the 
Jews ; and for his ignorance and gross apprehensions of 
which, he so tartly rallies that Jewish rabbi— u Art thou 

* Our English of *he words tar ut] tic yewij-fhj ?£ vdarog xat nrevuaTog —“J Ex¬ 
cept a man be born of water and of the spirit ,” (John iii. 5,) and of the words 
arwg triTi nag o ysysvnjutrog ex to nvtvuaTog —“ So is every one that is born of 
the spirit ,” (John iii. 8,) is ajesuitical imposition upon the simplicity of the mere 
English reader. The real rendering is, “ born of the Wind, or Puff.” So 
the Holy Ghost should be rendered the Holy Puff. Note, nothing makes d 
man so spiritually-minded as wind at the stomach. 


PYTHAGORAS. 


221 


c master 0 / Israel, and knowest not these things 9 ” —John iii 
10. It must be stupidity itself that could dream of any 
reason or propriety in rebuking the Jewish ruler for not 
knowing these things, if they were matters then first re¬ 
vealed, or not so common as that no well-educated person 
had any excuse for being ignorant of them. 

In John ix. 2, the disciples are represented as propound¬ 
ing to Jesus a question which would never have occurred 
but to minds entirely possessed of the Pythagorean doc¬ 
trine— u Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he 
was born blind 9” which the Master (the characteristic 
epithet of Pythagoras) answers precisely as Pythagoras 
might have done—“ Neither hath this man sinned, nor his pa¬ 
rents” &c. While the Jews imagine themselves to 
launch the severest invective against the blind man, in 
holding his being born blind as a proof that he must have 
been a very wicked wretch in some pre-existent state : 
u Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us —• 
John ix. 34. 

In Matthew xvii. 14, we find the Pharisees represented, 
according to the Pythagorean doctrines, as saying that 
Jesus was Elias ; and in Matthew xviii. 13, Jesus himself, 
so far from discountenancing that doctrine, confirms it, 
by giving his disciples to understand that John the Bap¬ 
tist was the soul of Elias come again in the person of that 
prophet. 

But the ninetieth Psalm, selected to be read as a part 
of our Burial Service, is entirely Pythagorean, and delivers 
the doctrine of the Metempsychosis too particularly to 
be mistaken, or to admit of any other possible under¬ 
standing : 

“ Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to 
another ;” that is, in every state of existence through which 
we have already passed. 

“ Thou turnest man to destruction: again thou sayest, Come 
again , ye children of men.”* 

u For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday ; seeing , 
hat is passed as a watch in the night.” 

u Comfort us again now, after the time that thou hast plagued 
us, and for the years wherein we have suffered adversity,” fyc. 

Be it remembered, that the exact length of the Pytha¬ 
gorean term of migration was a thousand years ; and surely 

* Observe how evidently this is the langua, e of quotation. Some word o f God y 
or from some sacred scripture which had rep rted his word, before ennui die i\ew 
or Old Testament had been imposed upon hi nan credulity. 

20 * 


222 


PTTHAGORAS. 


no argument could seem so well calculated to console and 
comfort the mind under the fear of death, or for the loss 
of friends, as the persuasion thus inculcated, that the pe¬ 
riod of separation would pass but as a watch in the night, 
and that, upon their next return into humanity, they 
should be comforted in proportion to all the adversity that 
they had gone through in their present condition. 

That Pythagoras should have adopted this whimsical 
but sublime theory, as the basis of a purer system of mo¬ 
rality, or rather, perhaps, made the best of a system which 
he found too deeply-rooted in men’s minds to admit of be¬ 
ing safely disturbed ; that he should have followed that 
allegorical and enigmatical mode of conveying metaphysi¬ 
cal speculations* and moral truths which characterized 
his age and country, thereby subjecting himself and his 
theories to the ridicule that must necessarily attach to all 
allegories and figurations, whose significancy can no long¬ 
er be traced ; that he should have descended to the jug¬ 
gling tricks of pretended communications with the Deity : 
that he should have deceived mankind in so many partic¬ 
ulars in which it cannot be denied that he was a deceiver, 
and have degraded his great wisdom by a conjunction with 
as great folly ; has its full apology in the simple statement, 
Pythagoras was a man ; and with all his imperfections on 
his head, we shall look among the race of men, for Ins 
better, in vain, yea, for his equal, or his second, but in vain. 

Pythagoras was entirely a Deist, a steady maintainer 
of the unity of God, and of the eternal obligations of moral 
virtue. No Christian writings, even to this day, can com- 
pete in sublimity and grandeur with what this illustrious 
philosopher has laid down concerning God, and the end 
of all our actions ; and it is likely, says Bayle, that he 
would have carried his orthodoxy much farther, had he 
had the courage to expose himself to martyrdom. 

The circumstances of the death of Pythagoras are vari¬ 
ously reported. He lived at Crotona, in Milo’s house, 

# with his disciples, and was burnt in it. A man whom he 
refused to admit into his society, set the house on fire. 

According to Dicaearchus, he fled to the temple of the 
muses at Metapontum, and died there of hunger. See upon 
this subject the learned collections of Mcnagius. Arnobius 

* His religious respect or antipathy to be "ns, were the circumstance divested of 
Christian exaggeration, or we were possessed of the clue, might admit of as ration¬ 
al an unravelling as the Egyptian worship of onions. See this Diegesis, p. 23 . 
Aristoxenus assures us that Pythagoras would often t at beans, his religious con¬ 
ceits notwithstanding. 


PYTHAGORAS. 22b 

affirms that he was b irned alive in a temple ; others state 
that he was slain in attempting to make his escape. 

It can hardly be doubted that his death was violent, 
notwithstanding the divine honours paid to him after¬ 
wards, and that, with all that he did to deceive mankind, 
or rather perhaps to preserve himself, he fell at last a mar¬ 
tyr to his generous efforts to undeceive them. 

The strongest type of resemblance or coincidence with 
the apostolic story, which the history of the Samian sage 
presents is, that the Egyptian Therapeuts boasted of his 
name as a member of their monastic institution ; and that 
Pythagoras certainly made his disciples live in common, 
and that they renounced their property in their patrimony, 
and that “ as many as were possessors of lands or houses , sold 
them , and brought the prices of the things that were sold , and laid 
them down at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made to every 
man according as he had need." —Acts iv. 35. 

An ill construction was put upon their union, and it 
proved very fatal to them. That society of students being 
looked upon as a faction which conspired against the state, 
sixty, of them were destroyed, and the rest ran away. 
u Three hundred young men,” says Justin, u formed into 
a society by a kind of oath, lived together by themselves, 
and were looked upon as a private faction by the state, 
who intended to burn them as they were assembled in one 
house. Almost sixty of them perished in the tumult, and 
the rest went into banishment.” This event, however, 
appears not to have occurred till some time after the death 
of their divine master. 

Let the reader compare these historical facts with the 
story of the Holy Ghost descending in the shape of fire upon 
the heads of the apostles, when they were all with one accord 
in one place, and their subsequent dispersion, as detailed in 
the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, so grossly 
fabulous, and so monstrously absurd, that there is not in 
the present day a Christian minister, who dare bring the 
subject before the contemplation of his hearers ; and then 
let him give to Christianity the benefit of all the doubt he 
shall entertain that these facts are not the basis of that 
fiction.—See his Creed, and Golden Verses , in our chapter 
Specimens of Pagan Piety. 

So conscious are the Christian Fathers of the superi¬ 
ority jf Pythagoras in every respect, that they endeavour 
to show that he was a Jew ;* that he had been an imme- 

* Imo fuere qui Nazaratum Pythagorae prseceptorern idem hie est cum Zabrato, 
ipsum esse Ezechelein pmphetam tradiderunt. Ex populo Judsiorum genu* 


224 


PYTHAGORAS 


diate disciple of the Jewish prophet Ezekiel , that he, as 
well as Pherecydes, Thales, Solon, and Plato, had learned 
the doctrine of the true God, not only among the Egyp¬ 
tians, but from the Hebrews themselves. 

In the account which the emperor Constantine gives of 
the matter, in his oration to the holy congregation of the 
clergy, Pythagoras, to be sure, is an impostor, inasmuch 
as that “ those things which the prophets had foretold, he 
delivered to the Italians as if God had particularly reveal¬ 
ed them to him.”* 

Lactantius, however, admits, and expresses his wonder, 
that when Pythagoras, and afterwards Plato, incited by 
the love of seeking truth, had travelled as far as to the 
Egyptians, the Magi, and the Persians, to learn the rites 
and ceremonies of those nations, they should never have 
consulted the Jews, with whom alone the true wisdom was 
to be found, and to whom they might have gone more read¬ 
ily.”! The Jews !! —Paugh ! 

“ Of the vast variety of religions which have prevailed 
at different times in the world, perhaps there was no one 
that has been more general than that of the Metempsy¬ 
chosis. It continued to be believed by the early Christian 
Fathers, and by several sects of Christians. 

u As much as this doctrine is now scouted, it was held 
not only by almost all the great men of antiquity, but a 
late very ingenious writer, philosopher, and- Christian 
apologist, avowed his belief in it, and published a defence 
of it; namely, the late Soame Jenyns.”— Higgins’’ Celtic 
Druids , pp. 283, 284. 

It is not, indeed, rational ; but what metaphysical spec¬ 
ulation of any sort is so ? Had it been more frightful, it 
would have been more orthodox. 

CHAPTER XXXIV. 

ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON’S CONFESSION OF THE IDENTITY OF 
CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM.if 

As it is really too much to be believed, and we wish to draw 
on no man’s confidence who may have the means of cer- 

duxisse Pythagoram, plerosque arbitrare scribit Ambrosius.— Kortholli Pagan. 
Obtrect. p. 48. 4>aoi St ovrug tv aiyvnru) e itovov nag’ aiyvnron• aX/La xai naQ 
Efiyaunv, ra ntQt r« orrwc: StSa/dtivcu #sa. — Theodoritus Therapeut. lib. 3. 

* Constantine’s Oration, c. 9. 

t Soleo admirari quod cum Pythagoras et postea Plato amore indagandse verita- 
tis accensi, ad iEgyptios et Magos, et Persas usque penetrassent, at earum gentium 
ritun et sacra cognoscerent—ad Judaeos tantuin non accesserint, penes quos tuuo 
solos erat, et quo facilius ire potuissent — Divin. Inst. lib. 4, cap. 2. 

t For the “ Life of Archbishop Tillotson,” see Wadsworth’s Ecclesiastical 


TILLOTSON. 


225 


tifying himself, that the highest dignitary of the churcn 
ot England, the brightest ornament it ever had, and the 
honestest man that ever received honour from it, or re¬ 
flected honour on it, should so have given tongue , so have 
confessed the whole cheat, betrayed his craft, and yielded 
every thing that philosophy could aim to conquer; 1 give 
the u liter a scripta ,” the u ipsissima verba” the written 
letter , the very words themselves , which will be found in the 
forty-sixth of the u fifty-four sermons and discourses 
which were published by his Grace himselfthis being 
the second of the two entitled u Concerning the Incarna¬ 
tion of our blessed Saviour;” on the text (John i. 14), u The 
Word was made flesh;” and preached in the church of St. 
Lawrence Jewry, Dec. 28, 1680 occurring in the fourth 
volume, 8vo, of Woodhouse’s edition, a. d. 1744; and of 
that volume, p. 143. It is remarkable, that, even so long 
ago, mankind were not quite so stupid as not to scent out 
the latitant waggery of these discourses, which would have 
gone nigh to have cost an ecclesiastic of humbler rank 
his ears in the pillory, or at least a year or two in Oakham 
Jail. The mitred infidel, however, in an advertisement to 
the reader, informs us, that “the true reason of publishing 
these discourses, was not the importunity of friends , but 
the importunate clamours and malicious calumnies of 
others , whom he heartily .prays God to forgive, and give 
them better minds.” Amen. 

Some Account of the Christian Dispensation. 

“ The third and last thing which I proposed upon this 
argument of the Incarnation of the Son of God , was to give 
some account of this dispensation, and to show that the 
wisdom of God thought fit thus to order things, in great 
condescension to the weakness and common prejudices of 
mankind.-f 

“ And it is the more necessary to give some account of 
this matter, because after all that hath hitherto been said 

Biography. An Fssay on his Character and Writings, constitutes the fifteenth of 
the author’s fifty letters from Oakham, and will be found in the 21st num¬ 
ber of the 1st volume of The Lion. 

* The characteristic distinction between Archbishop Tillotson and other archbish¬ 
ops and bishops, those of our own times more especially, is, that he was foolish 
enough to commit himself by public preaching, which our modern bishops, on the 
principle “ least said soonest mended ,” know better than to do ; and that though 
he was withal a very bishop, he was an honester man than any of them ; and, 
God knows, that’s no compliment. 

t The reader will observe, that the hyphen, thus, —, is inserted, to indicate 
that the sentence is relieved of its prolixity : not a syllable is added, nor one omit¬ 
ted, that in the least degree could qualify the sense. 



226 


TILLOTSON. 


in answer to the objections against it,* * * § it may still seem 
very strange to a considering man,f that God, who could 
without all this circumstance and condescension have- 
done the business should yet have made choice of this 
way,” &c. 

“ But since God hath been pleased to pitch upon this 
way iather than any other, this surely ought to be reason 
enough, whether the particular reasons of it appear to us 
or not.§”—p. 144. 

“ Secondly , I consider, in the next place, that in several 
revelations which God hath made of himself to mankind, 
he hath, with great condescension, accommodated himself 
to the condition and capacity, and other circumstances, of 
the persons and people to whom they were made. For 
the religion and laws which God gave them (i. e. the 
Jewish nation) were far from being the best (indeed!). 
God gave them statutes which were not good , that is, very 
imperfect in comparison of what he could and would have 
given them had they been capable of them.||—p. 145. 

“ Thirdly , I observe yet further, that though the Chris¬ 
tian religion, as to the main and substance of it, be a most 
perfect institution, yet, upon a due consideration of things, 
it cannot be denied, that the manner and circumstances of 
this dispensation are full of condescension to the weakness 
of mankind, and very much accommodated to the most 
common and deeply radicated prejudices of men.1T 

“ But in history and fact, this is certain, that some 
notions, and those very gross and erroneous, did almost 
universally prevail; and though some of these were much 
more tolerable than others, yet God seems to have had 
great consideration of some very weak and gross appre¬ 
hensions of mankind concerning religion. And as in some 
of the laws given by Moses, God was pleased particularly 
to consider the hardness of the hearts of that people; so 
he seems likewise to have very much suited the dispensa¬ 
tion of the Gospel, and the method of our salvation, by 

* Which is. being interpreted —All that has been said in answer to the objec¬ 
tions, has been very jejune and unsatisfactory. 

t Which is, being interpreted —'t is considering men who are the infidels. 

t Which is, being interpreted —Much ado about nothing. 

§ Which is, being interpreted, “Shut your eyes, and open your mouth, and 
see what God will send you.” 

II This might have been fair play, provided God himself was not able to en¬ 
large or improve their capacity. 

V Which is, being interpreted —The Christian religion, even as to the main 
and substance of it, is full of nonsense and barbarity, and only suited to the 
brutal apprehensions of savages and fools. 


TILLOTSON. 


227 


the incarnation and sufferings of his Son, to the common 
prejudices of mankind, especially of the heathen world, 
whose minds were less prepared for this dispensation than 
the Jews.* * * § 

“ That God hath done this in the dispensation of the 
Gospel, will, I think, very plainly appear in the following 
instances.—p. 147. 

u 1st, The world was much given to admire mysteries,f 
most of which were either very odd and fantastical, or very 
lewd and impure, or very inhuman and cruel. But the 
great mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God, was 
such a mystery as did obscure and swallow up all other 
mysteries. Since the world had such an admiration for 
mysteries, that was a mystery indeed—a mystery beyond 
all dispute, and beyond all comparison.^;—p. 48. 

“ 2dly, There was likewise a great inclination in man¬ 
kind to the worship of a visible Deity , (so) God was pleased 
to appear in our nature, that they who were so fond of a 
visible Deity might have one, even a true and natural 
image of God the Father, the express image of his 
person.§ 

u 3dly, Another notion which has generally obtained 
among mankind, was concerning the expiation of the sins 
of men, and appeasing the offended Deity by sacrifice— 
upon which they supposed the punishment due to the 
sinner was transferred—to exempt him from it, especially 
by the sacrifices of men.||—p. 148. And with this general 

* Good God ! could a bishop in stronger significancy discover his heartfelt ha¬ 
tred of Christianty. He held Christians to be more hard-hearted than the Jews 
themselves, and so God suited his religion to their hard-heartedness. 

t Compare with the chapter Eleusinian Mysteries, and with Admissions of Chris 
tian Writers, p. 52, No. 51, in this Diegesis. 

% O spirit of Voltaire ! Was ever sarcasm on earth more sarcastic ? Was it 
in plainer language that an Archbishop of Canterbury could have told us, that the 
Christian religion was the oddest, the lewdest, and the bloodiest that ever was 
upon earth, “ beyond all dispute, and beyond all comparison ?” 

§ This w T as the Spaniard Cortes’s way of converting the Mexicans, when he 
threw down their image of the Sun, and unfurled a picture of the Virgin Mary in its 
stead, with a—“ There, you dogs, an’ you must have something to worship, wor¬ 
ship that !”— History of America. 

And thus in the original Acts of the Apostles , written by Abdias Bishop of 
Babylon, who professes to have been ordained by the Apostles themselves, we 
have it related, that the blessed Saint Philip the Evangelist, preaching to the Scy¬ 
thians, exclaimed, “ Throw down this Mars and break him, and in the place 
in which he seems to stand fixed, set up the Cross of my Lord Jesus Christ , 
and ivorship that .”—Dejicite hunc Martem et confringite, et iu loco in quo fixus 
videtur stare, crucern Domini mei Jesu Christi atfigite, et hanc adorate. Fabricn 
Cod. Apocryp. tom. 2, in hac re. 

II That is, God was pleased to approve and sanction human sacrifices. And 
what was the difference between tins God and Moloch ? His Grace, howevoi 


TILLOTSON. 


228 

notion of mankind, God was pleased so far to comply, as 
once for all to have a general atonement made for the sins 
of all mankind, by the sacrifice of his only Son, whom his 
wise providence did permit by wicked hands to be crucified and 
slain . 

“4thly, Another very common notion, and very rife in 
the heathen world, and a great source of their idolatry, 
was their apotheosis, or canonizing of famous and eminent 
persons, by advancing them after their death to the dig¬ 
nity of an inferior kind of gods, fit to be worshipped by 
men here on earth, &c. Now, to take men off from tins 
kind of idolatry, and to put an end to it, behold! one in 
our nature exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on 
high, to be worshipped by men and angles ; one that 
was dead and is alive again , and lives for evermore to make in¬ 
tercession for us.* 

“ 5thly, The world was mightily bent upon addressing 
their requests and supplications, not to the Deity imme¬ 
diately, but by some mediators between the gods and 
them. In a gracious compliance with this common ap¬ 
prehension, God was pleased to constitute and appoint 
One in our nature to be a perpetual advocate and inter¬ 
cessor in heaven for us, bone of ur bone , and flesh of our 
flesh ;f so very nearly allied ana related to us, (that) we 
may easily believe that he hath a most tender care and 
concernment for us, if we ourselves, by our own wilful 
obstinacy, do not hinder it; for if we be resolved to con¬ 
tinue impenitent, there is no help for us ; we must die in 
our sins, and salvation itself cannot save us.” (p. 152)— 
Thus far his Grace of Canterbury. 

The reader is requested to compare this language 
throughout, with the avowals of Mosheim, the apologies 

has the most explicit texts of the New Testament on his side, (and no rational 
man will ever have a word to say against the Old Testament): “ For if the 
blood, of bulls and goats, and the ashes o f an heifer sprinkling the un 
clean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the 
blood of Christ," 8fc. ? Heb. ix. 13.—The force of the whole argument is,— 
the more monstrously horrible, the more cruel, barbarous, and bloody, the more 
sanctifying efficacy in the sacrifice, and the more acceptable to this horrid God. 

* Perhaps this is the severest irony, the most caustic sarcasm; that was evei 
couched in words. It is the “ Shew 'em in here," and “ All alive O !" of Bar¬ 
tholomew Fair. It is—“ Our tricks beat theirs!" It is—“ The fools! the 
idiots ! nothing can be too gross for 'em." 

t This is good, honest, downright materialism. ** Bone of our bone, and 
flesh of our flesh,” must involve our ways of making and sustaining bone and 
flesh. Here is no skiey *jmd cloudy vyork, and no room to rail at Mahomet’s 
terrestrial paradise. 


RESEMBLANCE. 


229 


}f Minucius Felix, Justin Martyr and Tertullian—with 
the concessions of Gregory of Csosarea, Origen, and 
Melito, in their places in this Diegesis —and with the 
total absence of any historical recognition of the exist¬ 
ence of Christianity, as distinct from Paganism, within 
the first hundred years, or as distinct from a sectarian 
excrescence grown upon Paganism, within the first 
thousand years; and let him be faithful to his own con¬ 
victions. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

RESEMBLANCE OF PAGAN AND CHRISTIAN FORMS OF WOR¬ 
SHIP. 

It would be alien from all ends of a Diegesis, or general 
narration of the character and evidences of the Christian 
religion, to have any ear or regard to the vituperations 
and wranglings of the various sects of Christians, who are 
each, if attended to, for unchristianizing all but themselves, 
and thus tearing the cause of their common Christianity 
to pieces, or surrendering it undefended to the scorn and 
triumph of its enemies. If Christianity be not, or was 
not, what the majority of those who professed and called 
themselves Christians, through a thousand years of its 
existence, held it to be, there is a sheer end of all possi¬ 
bility of ascertaining what it was or is, since, at that rate, 
it amounts to no more than the ideal chimera of any 
cracked brain you shall meet with; and all that can be 
said of it is—• 

“ As the fool thinketh, 

So the bell tinketh.” 

The intolerant and persecuting spirit of the established 
Protestant church, and the severity of the penalties in¬ 
flicted by law on all conscientious and honest avowals of 
the convictions which superior learning and deeper re¬ 
search might lead to, has enforced on the wisest and best 
of men a necessity of conveying their general scepticism 
under covert of attacking the peculiar doctrines and prac¬ 
tices of the church of Rome. Because this mode of attack 
would be endured, this only was to be tolerated. The 
predominant sect, so their own tenure on the profits of 
gospelling remained unendangered, would look on with 
indifference, or even join in the game of running down and 
tearing to pieces their common parent. To this conten 
21 


230 


RESEMBLANCE. 


tious spirit of Christians among themselves, and their 
union only in the wicked policy of persecuting infidels, 
we owe discoveries which in no other way could have at¬ 
tracted equal attention. We are thus enabled to carry some 
or other of recognised Christian authorities all the way 
with us, taking up one where we set down another, till we 
arrive at the complete breaking up of all pretence to 
evidence of any sort, and bring orthodoxy itself to sub¬ 
scribe the demonstrations of reason. Thus M. Daille, in 
his attempt to show that the religious worship of his fel¬ 
low Christians of the Roman Catholic communion could 
be distinctly traced to the institutions of Numa Pompilius, 
must lead every mind, capable of tracing our Protestant 
forms of piety to Roman Catholic institutions, to connect 
the first and last link of the sorites: ergo, Protestant cere¬ 
monies must have had the same origination. 

Dr. Conyers Middleton, the most distinguished orna¬ 
ment of the church of England, could not, compatibly 
with his personal convenience, venture to go the whole 
length of the way which he points out to the travel of 
freer spirits, though, by demonstrating the utter falsehood 
and physical impossibility of all and every other pretended 
miracle that ever was in the world, not excepting one 
(except such as he might have been put in the pillory if 
he had not excepted), he leaves the conclusion to be 
drawn—as it may be by every mind capable of drawing a 
conclusion, and as he could securely calculate that it 
would be—with a stronger effect of conviction than if he 
had himself prescribed it. 

Without regarding any of the distinctions without differ¬ 
ence upon which the jarring sects of Christians wrangle 
among themselves, we pass now from the comparison of 
the doctrines of what has been called divine Revelation, 
with the previously existing tenets and dogmas of Pagan¬ 
ism, to an examination of the no less striking resemblance 
of Pagan and Christian forms of worship. 

Priests, altars, temples, solemn festivals, melancholy 
grimaces, ridiculous attitudes, trinkets, baubles, bells, 
candles, cushions, holy water, holy wine, holy biscuits, 
holy oil, holy smoke, holy vestments, and holy books, 
state candlesticks, dim-painted windows, # chalices, sal- 

* In the most splendid chapel of the Methodists (Queen Street, Lincoln’s Inn), 
the altar stands in a druidical alcove, upon which the light descends through yel¬ 
low glass, to give to the countenance of their priests such a death-like tinge, as 
might make them seem to be standing under the immediate illapses of inspiration, 
“ Creatures not of this earth, and yet being on it ’’ 


RESEMBLANCE. 


231 


vers, pictures, tablets, achievements, music, &c. are found 
in various modifications and arrangements, not only in 
the sanctuaries of the Roman Catholic communion, but 
some or other, or all of them, even in methodistical con¬ 
venticles, or in Unitarian pagodas supposed to be at the 
farthest remove from any intended adoption of the Pagan 
and Papal ceremonies. 

We have seen the pontifical mitre, the augural staff, 
the keys of Janus, and the Capitoline chickens, em¬ 
blazoned on the armorial bearings, not of Popish , but of 
our Protestant bishops. The religious faction that seemed 
very reasonably to object to the “ pomps and vanities of 
this sinful world, while in the possession of those who 
had corrupted the pure faith of Christianity, very meekly 
and consistently take upon themselves the burthen of three 
times the revenues of that corrupt church.* Those who 
were shocked at so flagrant a violation of the precepts of 
their divine master, as that of the bishop of Rome, who 
styled himself servant of the servants of God , were content 
to be known only as—Right Reverend and Most Reverend 
Fathers in God, His Grace the Lord Archbishop, Bishop, 
Prelate, Metropolitan, and Primate, next in precedency 
to the blood royal, &c. &c. We have only to hope that 
Lactantius might have carried the matter too far where he 
says, that “ among those who seek power and gain from 
their religion, there will never be wanting an inclination 
to forge and to lie forit.”f 

“ That Popery has borrowed its principal ceremonies 
and doctrines from the rituals of Paganism,” is a fact 
which the most learned and orthodox of the established 
church have most strenuously maintained and most con¬ 
vincingly demonstrated. 

That Protestantism has borrowed its principal cere¬ 
monies and doctrines from the rituals of Popery, is a fact 
which the most learned and orthodox of the Catholic 
church as strenuously maintain, and as convincingly 
demonstrate. The conclusion, that Christianity is al¬ 
together Paganish, is as inevitable, as that if it be to be 
found neither among Catholics nor Protestants, there can 
be no such thing upon earth. 

THE WHITE SURPLICE, 

As worn by all our Protestant clergy, was the dress of the 
Pagan priesthood in a part of their public officiations, 

* See the Table of Ecclesiastical Revenues. t Lactant. De fals. Relig. 1. 4. 


232 


RESEMBLANCE. 


and is so described oy the satirist Juvenal ,'* * * § and the poet 
Ovid.f It was the peculiar habiliment of the priests of 
Isis; and Isis herself being believed to have been the in- 
ventress of linen, of which these surplices are made, her 
effeminate priests were distinguished from more manly 
imposters by the still-applicable epithet of surplice or 
linen-wearers. Silius, however, speaking of the rites used 
in the Gaditan Temple of Hercules, instructs us that the 
priests of Hercules were also distinguished by wearing 
the white surplice. “ They went barefoot, practised 
chastity, had no statues, wore white linen surplices, and 
paid tithe to Hercules;” that is, they were liberal in 
subscriptions to keep up the system that kept them up. 


HOLY WATER. 

Water, wherein the person is baptised in the name of the 
Father , and of the Son , and of the Holy Ghost .— Church of 
England Catechism. 


THE BAPTISMAL FONT, 

In our Protestant churches, and we can hardly say more 
especially the little cisterns at the entrance of our Catholic 
chapels, are not imitations, but an unbroken and never 
interrupted continuation of the same aquaminaria or 
amula , which the learned Montfaucon, in his Antiquities, 
shows to have been vases of holy water , which were 
placed by the heathens at the entrance of their temples to 
sprinkle themselves with upon enlenng those sacred edifices 
u And with pure dews sprinkled, enter the temples,”{ 
Euripides stands only in paraphrase in our Heb. x. 22, 
“Let us draw near with a true heart, having our hearts 
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed 
with pure water.” The same vessel was called by the 
Greeks the sprinkler.§ Two of these, the one of gold, the 
other of silver, were given by Croesus to the temple of Apol¬ 
lo at Delphi. Justin Martyr, the second in succession of 
the Christian Fathers, next to those who are called apos¬ 
tolic, says, that “ this ablution, or wash, was invented by 
demons, in imitation of the true baptism, that their votaries 

* Q,ui grege liniger circumdatus et grege calvo.— Juv. 6. 3. 

1 Nunc Dea linigera colitur celeberrima turba.— Ovid. Met. 1. 746 

t--- ICaduQaig dyoaoig 

’ A(pvSyarausvoi artij((Ts rang. 

§ IIsQiQqavTtjQiov. 




RESEMBLANCE 


233 


/nig-lit also have their pretended purifications by water.”* 
There certainly must have been something supernaturally 
ingenious in the inventions of these diabolical imitators, 
who always contrived to be the authors of the very first 
specimens of what they imitated, and to get their imita¬ 
tions into full vogue before the originals from which they 
copied were in existence. The u sanctification of water 
to the mystical washing away of sin,” and in signification 
of “ a death unto sin and a new birth unto righteousness,” 
had not only been used, but most abundantly abused, 
before its original institution as a Christian sacrament; 
as we find Ovid in verse,f and the best and wisest of the 
whole human race, Cicero, in his philosophical writings, 
severely rebuking the egregious absurdity of expecting 
moral improvement from any such foolish and contempti¬ 
ble superstitions. 

The form of the aspergillum , or sprinkling-brush, as used 
by the clergy of the Catholic communion in sprinkling our 
Christian congregations, is yet to be seen in bas-reliefs and 
ancient coins, wherever the insignia or emblems of the 
Pagan priesthood are described. It may be seen at this 
day on a silver coin of Julius Csesar, as well as on the 
coins of many other emperors. The severe ridicule and 
sarcasm heaped by our Protestant clergy on their Catholic 
brethren, for extending the benefit of these mysterious 
sprinklings to their horses, asses, and other cattle, would 
come with a better grace, if they themselves would explain 
what there is of a more rational and dignified significancy 
in sprinkling new-born infants, who, in the eye of reason 
and common sense, might seem as little capable of receiv¬ 
ing any benefit from the ceremony as the brute creation. 

The ancient Pagans had especial gods and goddesses who 
presided over the birth of infants. The goddess Nundina 
took her name from the ninth day, on which all male chil¬ 
dren were sprinkled with holy water, as females were on 
the eighth, at th'e same time receiving their Pagan name ; 
of which addition to the ceremonial of Christian baptism, 
we find no mention in the Christian Scriptures. When all 
the forms of the Pagan nundination were duly complied 

* Kou to Iatqov fit] Torn axHOavreg oi Sai/nortg dta ra ngoip »;ra xtxi]Qvxu*vov % 
ev>]Qy7]Gav xai QavTitstr tavrag Tug tigra uya avrorv tnifiairovrag. — Just. Mart. 
JLyol. 1,91, p. edit. Thirlb. 

t Ah minium faciles qui tristia cri nina caedis 
Fluminea tolli posse putetis aqu; — Ovid. Fast. 2.45. 

At animi labes nec diuternitate evanescere nec ; His amnis elui potest.— Cicero. 

21 * 


34 


RESEMBLANCE. 


with, the priest gave a certificate to the parents of the re¬ 
generated infant ; it was thenceforth duly recognized as a 
legitimate member of the family and of society, and the 
day was spent in feasting and hilarity. 


Facsimile of a Fagan Certifi¬ 
cate of JYundination. 

I certify you, that in this case 
all is well done, and according 
unto due order, concerning the 
nundinaiion of this child, who, 
being born in original sin, and 
in the wrath of God, is now, by 
the laver of regeneration in 
baptism, received into the num¬ 
ber of the children of God, and 
heirs of the right of life. 

Jlrcan. Probabilium. 


Copy of ihe form of a Christian 
Certificate of Baptism. 

I certify you, that in this 
case all is well done, and ac¬ 
cording unto due order, con¬ 
cerning the baptizing of this 
child, who, being born in ori¬ 
ginal sin, and in the wrath of 
God, is now, by the laver of re¬ 
generation in baptism, received 
into the number of the children 
of God, and heirs of everlasting 
life.— Church of England Bap¬ 
tismal Service. 


The old stories and impostures of the ancient Paganism , and 
the new versions of them , as adopted and sanctified by the faith 
of Christian believers , may be compared by juxta-position , 
thus — 

PAGAN. CHRISTIAN. 


Cicero , concerning the origin 
of divination, relates— 

That a man being at plough 
in a certain field of Ftruria , 
and happening to strike his 
plough somewhat deeper than 
ordinary, there started up be¬ 
fore him, out of the furrow, a 
Deity , whom they called Tages. 
The ploughman, terrified by so 
strange an apparition, made 
such an outcry, that he alarmed 
all his neighbours, and in a short 
time drew the whole country 
around him; to whom The God , 
in the hearing of them all, ex¬ 
plained the whole art and mys¬ 
tery of divination : which all 
their writers and records affirmed 
to be the genuine origin of that 


The whole collegiate church 
of regular canons , concerning 
the origin of St. Mary of Im- 
pruneta,* relate— 

When the inhabitants of Im- 
pruneta had resolved to build 
a church to the Virgin, and 
were digging the foundations 
of it with great zeal, on a spot 
marked out to them by heaven, 
one of the labourers happened 
to strike his pickaxe against 
something under ground, from 
which there issued presently a 
complaining voice or groan.— 
The workmen being greatly 
amazed, put a stop to their 
work for a while; but having 
recovered their spirits, after 
some pause they ventured to 


Impruneta, a small town six miles from Florence. 


RESEMBLANCE. 


23d 


old 


discipline foi which the 
Tuscans were afterwards so 
famous.— Cic. de Divin. 2. 23. 
Cicero, however, subjoins, that 
to attempt to confute such 
stories would be as silly as to 
believe them. 


open the place from which the 
voice came, and found the mira¬ 
culous image. This is delivered 
by their writers, not grounded, 
as they say, on vulgar fame, but 
on public records and histories, 
confirmed by a perpetual series 
of miracles— Middleton’s Pref 
Disc, to Letter from Rome. 

Our modern Iconoclasts* will be ready to cry out, tha* 
the asserters of these popish stories were no Christiana 
not seeing the dilemma they rush on, in subjecting them¬ 
selves to the utterly unanswerable challenge- Who then 
were Christians 9 Let them strike from their list, if they 
please, all the writers, whose faith and credibility has been 
pawned and forfeited on stories,—than which the best are 
than this—no better; let them join the laugh against their 
Eusebius, for taking owls for angels; their St. Augustin, 
for preaching the gospel to a whole nation of men and 
women -that had no heads; their Origen, for being a priest 
of the goddess Cybele and of Jesus Christ at the same 
time; their Tertullian, for believing the resurrection of 
Christ, because it was impossible; their Gregory for writ¬ 
ing letters to the Devil, yes! and their great Protestant 
reformer Martin Luther, for seriously believing, that the 
Devil ran away with children out of their cradles and put 
his own imps in their places. And then produce all the 
testimonies they shall have left, of the existence of a re¬ 
ligion that was not essentially and absolutely pagan, at 
any time before the period of their pretended reformation. 

The only difference was, that Jupiter was turned into 
Jehovah, Apollo into Jesus Christ, Venus’s pigeon into 
the Holy Ghost, Diana into the Virgin Mary, a new no¬ 
menclature was given to the old materia theologica : the 
demigods were turned into saints ; the exploits of the one 
were represented as the miracles of the other ; the pagan 
temples became Christian churches ; and so ridiculously 
accommodating were the converters of the world to the 
prejudices of their pagan ancestors and neighbours, that 
we find, that for the express and avowed purposes of ac¬ 
commodating matters that the change might be the less 
offensive, and the old superstition as little shocked as 
possible, they generally observed some resemblance of 
quality and character in the saint whom they substituted 

* Image breakers 


236 


RESEMBLANCE. 


to the old deity. “ If in converting the profane worship 
of the Gentiles to the pure and sacred worship of the 
church, the faithful were wont to follow some rule and 
proportion, they have certainly hit upon it here, (at Rome) 
in dedicating to the Virgin Mary, the temple formerly 
sacred to the Bona Dea , or Good Goddess.”* In a place 
formerly sacred to Apollo, there now stands.the Church of 
Saint Apollinaris, built there, as they tell us, in order that 
the profane name of that Deity might be converted into 
the glorious name of this martyr. 

Where there anciently stood the temple of Mars, they have 
erected a Church to Saint Martina , with this inscription, 

Mars hence expelled; Martina martyr’d maid 
Claims now the worship which to him was paid.t 

It is certain that in the earlier ages of Christianity, the 
Christians often made free with the sepulchral stones of 
heathen monuments , which being ready cut to their hands, 
they converted to their own use, and turning downwards 
the side on which the old epitaph was engraved, used 
either to inscribe a new one on the other side, or leave it 
perhaps without any inscription at all. This has fre¬ 
quently been the occasion of ascribing martyrdom and 
saintship to persons and names of mere Pagans. 


THE PANTHEON. 

The noblest heathen temple now remaining in the 
world, is the Pantheon or Rotunda, which, as the inscrip¬ 
tion over the portico informs us, having been impiously 
dedicated of old by Agrippa to Jove and all the Gods, 
was piously reconsecrated by Pope Boniface the Fourth, 
to the Mother of God and all the Saints.:f 

* Si nel rivoltare *il profuno culto de gentili nel sacro e vero, osservarono i 
fedeli qualche proportione, qui la ritrovarono assai conveniente nel dedicare a 
Maria virgine un tempio, ch’era della Bona Dea.— Rom. Med. Gior. 2. Rion di 
Rissa, 10. 

t The inscription of course is in Latin, and this it is— 

Martyrii gestans virgo Martina coronam 
Ejecto nine Martis numina Templa tenet. 

} The inscription is— 

PANTHEON, &c. 

AB AGRIPPA AUGUSTI GENERO 
IMPIE JOVI, CJETE RISQUE MENDACIBUS DIIS 
A BONIFACIO IIII. PONTIFICE 
PEIPAR#: ET S. S. CHRISTI MARTYRIBUS PIE 
DICATUM, 



RESEMBLANCE. 


237 


Inscriptions in Pagan Temples * 

1 . 

To Mercury and Minerva, 
Tutelary Gods. 

2 . 

T o the Gods who preside over 
this Temple. 

3 . 

To the Divinity of Mercury, 
the availing, the powerful, 
the unconquered. 

4 . 

Sacred 
To the Gods 
and Goddesses 
with 

Jove the Best and the Greatest. 

t), 

Apollo’s Head, 

suirounded with rays of glory. 

6 . 

The mystical letters 
I H S, 

surrounded with rays of glory. 


Inscriptions in Chnstian Churches.* 

1 . 

To St. Mary and St. Francis, 
My Tutelaries. 

2 . 

To the Divine Eustorgius, 
who presides over this Temple. 

3 . 

To the Divinity of St George, 
the availing, the powerful, 
the unconquered. 

4 . 

Sacred 

To the presiding helpers, 

St. George and St. Stephen, 
with 

God the Best and Greatest. 

5 . 

Venus’s Pigeon, 
surrounded with rays of glory 

6 . 

The mystical letters 
I H S, 

surrounded with rays of glory. 


Aringhus , in his account of subterraneous Rome, 
acknowledges this conformity between the Pagan and 
Christian forms of worship, and defends the admission of 
the ceremonies of heathenism into the service of the 
church, by the authority of the wisest prelates and go¬ 
vernors, who found it necessary, he says , in the conversion 
of the Gentiles, to dissemble and winkf at many things, 
and yield to the times; and not to use force against cus¬ 
toms which the people were so obstinately fond of, nor to 
think of extirpating at once every thing that had the 
appearance of profane, but to supersede in some mea¬ 
sure the operation of the sacred laws, till these converts 


* 1. Mercurio et Minervae, Diis 
Tutelarib. 

2. Dii qui huic ternplo president. 

3. NuminiMercurii, pollenti, potenti, 
invicto. 

4. Diis Deabus que cum Jove. 

Gruter's Inscriptions. 

+ “ And the times of this ignorance 


* 1. Marie et Francisce, Tutelarcs 
mei. 

2. Divo Eustorgio, qui huic ternplo 
praesidet. 

3. Numini Divi (ieorgii, pollenti, 
potenti, invicto. 

4. Divis pnestitibus juvantibus, Georgio 
Stephanoque, cum Deo Opt. Max. 
Boldoniuss Epigraphs. 
God winked at. ”—Acts xvii, 30. 



238 


RESEMBLANCE. 


convinced by degrees, and informed of tl e whole truth, 
by the suggestions of the Holy Spirit, should be content 
to submit in earnest to the yoke of Christ.* 

The reader will do himself the justice of collating this 
admission with the same accommodating policy of St. 
Gregory, adduced in our Chapter of Admissions, p. 48 


SAINTS AND MARTYRS THAT NEVER EXISTED. 

The last of ten thousand features of resemblance be¬ 
tween Paganism and Christianity, which might be adduced 
to establish their absolute identity, which we shall care to 
notice, is the striking coincidence that the Christian person¬ 
ages, like the Pagan deities, were frequently created by er¬ 
rors of language, mistakes of noun substantives for proper 
names, ignorance of the sense of abbreviated words, sub¬ 
stitution of one letter for another, &c. &c. so that words 
which had only stood for a picture, a cloak, a high-road, 
a ship, a tree, &c. in their original use, were passed over 
in another language as names of gods, heroes, saints, and 
martyrs, when no such persons had ever existed. Thus 
have we a Christian church erected to Saint Jhnphibolus , 
another to Saint Viar—C hristian prayers addressed to 
the holy martyr Saint Veronica; and Chrestus adored as 
a god, by the ignorance that was not aware that 

Ampkibolus was Greek for a cloak; 

Viar. abbreviated Latin for a perfectus Viarum , or over¬ 
seer of the highways; 

Vera Icon , half Latin and half Greek for true image; and 

Chrestusf the Greek in Roman letters for any good and 
useful man or thing. 

* Ac maximi subinde pontifices quam plurima prima quidem facie dissimulanda 
duxere, optimum scilicet rati tempori deferendum esse; suadebant quippe sibi, haud 
ullam adversus gentilitios ritus vim, utpote qui mordicus a fideiibus retinebantur, ad- 
hibendam esse; neque ullatenus enitendum, ut quicquid profanos saperet mores, 
omnino tolleretur, quinimo quam maxima utendum lenitate, sacraruinque legum ex 
parte intermittendum imperiuin arbitrabantur.—Tom. 1, lib. 1, c. 21. 

t This mistake originates in what is called the “Jotacism, which consists in 
pronouncing the t like >/. The modern Greeks give them both the sound of the 
Italian / or English E. This prevailed much in Egypt, and hence is frequently 
seen to take place in the Alexandrine MSS. Hence also Xfjinroc and Xqi] nrog 
have been confounded; and Suetonius has written, “ Jud<eos impulsore Chresto 
assidue tumultuantes Roma expuli/.”— Elsley’s Annotations on the Gospels , 
vol. I, p. xxz. 

But surely this will read quite as well if taken exactly the other way. It was 
as easy for the Christian-evidenee a anufacturers to change E into I, as for Suetoni¬ 
us to have changed 1 into E. 




SPECIMENS OF PAGAN PIETY. 


239 


Notwithstanding- the idiot’s dream of an imaginary pre- 
Protestant state of Christianity, or of Christianity in its 
primitive purity, ere what are called the corruptions of the 
Romish church had mingled with and defiled the stream 
our Protestant historians are not able to make good their 
evidence of the existence of Christianity, in any time or 
place, in separation from the most exceptionable of those 
corruptions. Never was there the day or the hour in 
which Christianity was , and its corruptions were not. The 
thing of supposable rational evidence, historical fact, sub¬ 
lime doctrines, moral precepts, and practical utility, which 
we hear of in the coxcomb-divinity of an Unitarian chapel, 
is a perfect ens rationis , the beau ideal of conceit, that never 
had its type in history. Though the most accurate cal¬ 
culations satisfactorily prove that not more than a twen¬ 
tieth part of the Roman empire had embraced the Christian 
name before the conversion of Constantine, yet on the 
occasion of that prince’s death, his historian, Eusebius,* 
tells us of masses which were celebrated, and prayers which 
were said for his soul in the Apostle’s church, as a thing v 
of course, and in a way in which it was impossible that 
such performance of mass and prayers for the dead coujd 
have been spoken of, had there been any contrary doctrine 
or practice known to Christ’s church, of higher antiquity 
or of better sanction than they. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

SPECIMENS OF PAGAN PIETY. 

HQo&vQaia. 

“ The first of the Orphicf Hymns is addressed to the 
goddess noo&vQaia) or the Door-keeper , and as it is perhaps 
the most ancient monument extant of the adoration paid 
to the deity who was supposed to preside over child-births , 
and whom the Romans afterwards called Juno Lucina , or 
Diana Lucina,” I present the reader with a literal transla¬ 
tion of it, which I fijid ready made to my hand, in Park- 
hurst’s Hebrew Lexicon :— 


* Euseb. Hist, of Constantino, book 4, ch. 71. 

't Orpheus, or rather Onomacritus, lived 5G0 b. c. 


240 


SPECIMENS OF PAGAN PIETY. 


“ To Prothyr^ea, the Incense , Storax. 

“Hear me, 0 venerable goddess,demon with many names,* 
aid in travail, sweet hope of child-bed women, Saviour of 
females, kind friend to infants, speedy deliverer, propitious 
tc youthful nymphs, Prothyrcea ! Key-hearer, gracious 
nourisher, gentle to all, who dwellest in the houses of all, 
delightest in banquets ! Zone-looser, secret, but in thy 
works to all apparent! Thou sympathises! with throes, 
bur, rejoicest in easy labours ; Ilithyria , in dire extremi¬ 
ties, putting an end to pangs; thee alone parturient 
women invoke, rest of their souls, for in thy power are 
those throes that end their anguish, Artemis , llythyria , 
reverend Prothyrcea. Hear, immortal dame, and grant us 
offspring by thy aid, and save us, as thou bast always 
been the Saviour of all /” —Lexicon , under the word did — 
to bring" forth or be delivered .f 


A free poetical version of an hymn to Diana, expressive 
of her attributes, as generally believed and worshipped 
ebout the time of St. Paul, to the measure of the Sicilan 
Mariner’s Hymn :— 

“ Great is Diana of the Ephesians —Acts xix. 34. 

u Great Diana! huntress queen! 

Goddess bright, august, serene! 

In thy countenance divine 
Heaven’s eternal glories shine. 

Thou art holy! thou alone, 

Next to Juno, fill’st the throne! 

Thou for us on earth vvast seen— 

Thou, of earth and heav’n the queen! 

They to thee who worship pay, 

From thy precepts never stray; 

Chaste they are, and just and pure, 

And from fatal sins secure; 

* And what was to hinder the blessed Virgin Mary from being one of the 
names of this demon ? Godfrey Higgins, I’.sq. in his most instructive and inter¬ 
esting History of the Celtic Druids, published a. d. 1827, states that he counted 
upwards of forty different names under the image of the Virgin at Loretto.—p. 
109. 

t The reader will observe, that as the distinguishing attributes of the Pagan 
divinities were represented in their statues, it was absolutely impossible that this 
Divine Virgin, kind friend to infants, could be symbolized otherwise than as 
with a child in her arms. But such a representation could not possibly symbo¬ 
lize or distinguish the mother of Jesus from any other mother ! 




SPECIMENS OF PAGAN PIETY. 


241 


Peace of mind ’tis their’s to know, 

To thy blessed sway who bow ; 

Chastest body, purest mind— 

Will, to will of God resign’d ; 

Conquest over griefs and cares ; 

Peace—for ever peace, is their’s. 

O bright goddess ! once again 
Fix on earth thy heav’nly reign; 

Be thy sacred name ador’d, 

Altars rais’d, and rites restor’d f 

But if long contempt of thee 
Move thy sacred deity 
This so fond request to slight, 

Beam on me, on me, thy light. 

Thy adoring vot’ry, I 

In thy faith will live and die ; 

And when Jove’s supreme command 
Calls me to the Stygian strand, 

I no fear of death shall know, 

But with thee contented go : 

Thou my goddess, thou my guide, 

Bear me through the fatal tide ; 

Land me on th’ Elysian shore, 

Where nor sin, nor grief is more— 

Life’s eternal blest abode, 

Where is virtue, where is God.” 

First published in the Author’s Clerical Review t in Ireland. 


THE PRAYER OF SIMPLICIUS. 

There is a most beautiful prayer of the Pagan SimplU 
cius, generally given at the end of Epictetus’s Enchiridion, 
and almost the model of that used in our Communion Ser¬ 
vice, u 0 Almighty God , to ivhom all hearts are open , all desires 
known” &c. The ideas are precisely the same ; the words 
and the machinery alone are a little varied. I find a ready¬ 
made poetical version of this, in Johnson’s Rambler. 
u O thou, whose pow’r o’er moving worlds presides, 

Whose voice created, and whose wisdom guides ! 

On darkling man in pure effulgence shine, 

And cheer the clouded mind with light divine. 

’Tis thine alone, to calm the pious breast 
With silent confidence and holy rest. 

From thee, great Jove ! we spring, to thee we tend, 

Path, Motive, Guide, Original, and End !” 

22 



242 


SPECIMENS OF PAGAN PIETY. 


THE CREED OF PYTHAGORAS. 

“ There is one God, and there is none other but he.”—Mark xii. 32. 


“ God is neither the object of sense, nor subject to pas¬ 
sion, but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelli¬ 
gent. In his body he is like the light, and in his soul he 
resembles truth. He is the universal spirit that pervades 
and diffuseth itself over all nature. All beings receive 
their life from him. There is but One only God ! ! who is 
not, as some are apt to imagine, seated above the world 
beyond the orb of the universe ;* but being himself all in 
all, he sees all the beings that fill his immensity, the only 
principle, the light of heaven, the Father of all. He pro¬ 
duces every thing, he orders and disposes every thing; he 
is the reason, the life, and the motion of all beings.”— Dr. 
Collyer’s Lectures , quoted by G. Higgins , Esq. Celtic Druids , 
4to. p. 126. 

Mr. Higgins, adducing this bit of Paganism, exclaims, 
“ How beautiful !” But surely, he would not think of 
putting these unsanctified notions of the deity on a footing 
with the sublime description of the evangelical poet Dr. 
Watts, who, knowing so much more about God than 
Pythagoras did, tells us, 

His nostrils breathe out fiery streams, 

He’s a consuming fire ; 

His jealous eyes his wrath inflame, 

And raise his vengeance higher! /” 

Watt’s Hymnsy book 1, hymn 42. 

The consolations and advantages which the Christian 
derives from the blessed light of the Gospel, may be best 
appreciated by thus comparing them with the darkness ot 
Paganism: 

** So lies the snow upon a raven’s back !” 


THE GOLDEN VERSES OF PYTHAGORAS. 

Of these, I supply a free poetical version, by the father 
of the late Mr. John Adams, of Edmonton, to whom I 

* This sentiment of Pythagoras, so many years before the Christian era, is evi¬ 
dently the correction of some grosser form of demonolatry, which had prevailed in 
the heathen world before the time of Pythagoras, and which had been expressed 
in such words as “ Our Father, which art in heaveny &c. 




SPECIMENS OF PAGAN PIETY. 243 

owe my prima elementa of literature. The Greek text is 
below.* 

u Let not soft slumber close thine eyes, 

Before thou recollectest thrice 
Thy train of actions through the day : 

‘ Where have my feet found out their way ? 

What have I learn’d, where’er I’ve been, 

From all I’ve heard, from all I’ve seen ? 

W 7 hat know I more that’s worth the knowing ? 

What have I done that’s worth the doing ? 

What have I sought that I should shun ? 

What duty have I left undone ? 

Or into what new follies run 
These self-inquiries are the road 
That leads to virtue and to God.” 


THE MORALS OF CONFUCIUS. 

The result of the learned researches of the pious Sii 
William Jones was, his established conviction “that a 
connection existed between the old idolatrous nations of 
Egypt, India, Greece, and Italy, long before the birth of 
Moses .”—Asiatic Researches , vol. 1, p. 271. 

“ The philosophic Baillie has remarked, that every thing 
in China, India, and Persia, tends to prove that these 
countries have been the depositaries of science, not its 
inventors.” f 

Dr. Mosheim has proved the establishment of the The- 
rapeutan monks at Alexandria before the time when Christ 
is said to have been on earth ; and that these Therapeu- 
tan monks were professors of the Eclectic Philosophy, avow¬ 
edly collecting and bringing together the best tenets of 
moral philosophy which could be gathered from all the 
various systems of the world. They were, for this pur¬ 
pose, as well as to extend their power and influence, mighty 
travellers, and could not have failed of visiting China. 
Among the maxims which Kon-futz-see , or Confucius, the 

31tjd’ VTivov fiaXaxoiOtv tn ou^dOi nQooSszaaOai 
IIqiv twv r^eqivwv e(/yu)r r Qtg ixuarov sntX-deir .- 
Ib] 7 laQeptjv ; rt d’tQtcu ; n 1101 Stov ovx trtXta&r] ; 
ylqzuutvog d’ano tiqwtov tnfztfh. Kat fKTsntiTa 
JuXa /uev tXTiQtjiac, e 7 iinX 7 ](fOeo, /QyjOTa fit tsqtiov. 

t Mr. Higgins on the Celtic Druids, p. 52. On p. 45 of which, see “ a lamen 
table example in the case of Sir William Jones himself, of the power of religious 
bigotry to corrupt the mind of even the best of men.” The moral sensibilities of 
this great man could better abide the consciousness of the most wilful and scanda¬ 
lous misrepresentation, than to be just to the character of an adversary. Such are 
the triumohs of the Gospel ! 



244 


CHARGES. 


great Chinese philosopher, who had flourished about 500 
years before the birth of Christ, had left to that people, 
was the Golden Rule of doing unto others as “ you 
would they should do unto you.” 

This, the Therapeuts, adopted into their Moral Giumo- 
logue, or put into the mouth of the Demon of the Diege- 
sis, from whence it passed into the copies or epitomes of 
the Diegesis, which have been falsely taken for the orig¬ 
inal compositions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 

Depending, as we necessarily must, on a translation, 
(for who that had to learn any thing else, could learn the 
language of the Chinese ?) I follow the edition by Jose¬ 
phus Tela, reprinted from the edition of 1691; and colla¬ 
ting this by the text of the New Testament, the reader 
will see that not only the idea is precisely the same, but 
the rhythmus, manner, and manner of connection, are 
precisely the same, beyond the solution of any hypothesis, 
but that the latter is a plagiarism. 

Confucius, St. Matthew, 

Maxim 24th. Chapter vi. verse 12. 

Do to another what you would Therefore, all things whatso- 
he should do unto you ; and do ever ye would that men should 


not unto another what you would 
not should be done unto you. 
Thou only needest this law 
alone ; It is the foundation and 


do to you, do ye even so to 
them ; for this is the law and the 
prophets. 


principle of all the rest. 

The abridged form and more smoothly constructed sen¬ 
tence, according to canons of criticism already laid down,* 
demonstrates the later composition, consequently the pla¬ 
giarism. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

CHARGES BROUGHT AGAINST CHRISTIANITY BY ITS EARLY 
ADVERSARIES, AND THE CHRISTIAN MANNER OF ANSWER¬ 
ING THOSE CHARGES. 

After having fairly considered and compared the striking 
features of resemblance which subsist between the Pagan 
and Christian doctrines, and also between the Pagan and 


See CanonS, p. Ill, of this Diegesis. 


CHARGES. 


245 


Christian forms of worship, and given due weight to the 
admissions which Christian divines and historians have 
made touching that resemblance; our method requires 
that we should take some account of such of the charges 
which their early enemies brought against them, as their 
fairness has transmitted, or their inadvertency has suffered 
to escape and come down to posterity. 

We can never lose from this calculation, the plumb dead 
weight which Christians themselves have thrown into the 
adverse scale, by those arts of suppressing facts, stifling 
testimony, preventing the coming-up of evidence, persecu¬ 
ting witnesses, and destroying or perverting the documents 
that were from time to time adduced against them, of 
which they stand convicted by the concurrent testimony 
of all parties, and their own reiterated avowals, full often 
themselves u glorying in their shame,” and boasting of 
having promoted the cause of truth, by frauds and sophis¬ 
tications of which their heathen adversaries would have 
been ashamed. 

Were we in full possession, as in reason and fairness we 
ought to have been, of the writings of Porphyry, Cetsus, 
Hierocles, and other distinguished and conscientious oppo¬ 
nents of the Christian faith ; as they wrote themselves, 
and not as their adversaries were pleased to write for 
them, suffering them only to seem to make such objections 
as were ridiculous or weak in themselves, or such as 
Christian writers found themselves most easily able to 
answer; the probability is, that the whole apparatus of 
Christian evidence would be beaten off the field ; and we 
should be able to give the fullest and most satisfactory ex¬ 
planation of those apparent defects in the manner by 
which those who held Christianity to be an imposture, 
ought to have assailed it , which cannot be ascribed to their 
deficiency of shrewdness, or insincerity of hostility. 

We see even in our own days, and the author of this 
work experiences in his own person, in the endurance of 
an unjust and cruel imprisonment,* and still to be contin¬ 
ued bondage of five years after the term of that imprison¬ 
ment shall have expired, what sort of justice Christians 
would be likely to show to the arguments of their oppo¬ 
nents. Were they orators whose powers of declamation 
their Christian adversaries must have despaired to cope 
with? Why, their persons could be Oakhamized . Were they 

* This work was composed in Oakham Gaol. 

22 * 


246 


CHARGES. 


writers whose diligence of research, fidelity of statement, 
and strength of argument, could not be equalled ? Why, 
their writings could be suppressed, or kept back as much 
as possible from public knowledge ; and then, to be sure, 
their Christian adversaries, in their guaranteed security 
that all that should be heard , and all that should be read, 
should be their preachings and writings only, would not 
only represent their opponents as the most contemptible 
orators and weakest reasoners in the world, but could 
father them with such miserable specimens of eloquence, 
and such jejune and feeble objections, as Origen would 
exhibit as the composition of Celsus, and as Eusebius has 
invented for Porphyry. It was never to be endured by 
Christians, that an orator who opposed their faith should be 
believed to have been eloquent, or that a writer who con¬ 
futed their opinions, should be thought to be reasonable. 


CHARGE 1. 

That the Christian Scriptures were plagiarisms 
from previously existing Pagan Scriptures, is the spe¬ 
cific and particular charge which the early opponents of 
Chiistianity ought to have brought against it, if that charge 
were tenable. The apparent not bringing forward of such a 
charge leaves in the hands of the advocates of Christianity, 
the presumption that such a charge was not tenable; and 
ergo , that the Christian Scriptures were the original 
compositions of the persons to whom Christians them¬ 
selves ASCRIBED THEM. 

THE ANSWER. 

To this, which is the pith of the whole argument, it is 
answered, 1st. That though the charge had been tenable, 
it could not, from its own nature, have been brought for¬ 
ward, before the Christians had first brought forward a 
pretence that they were in possession of original Scrip¬ 
tures, and had permitted it to be generally known what 
those Scriptures were. But that pretence was not made 
till after the Christian religion had been preached and es¬ 
tablished, and a large number of converts already made * 

* “ Eardner shows advantages arising from a late publication ofthe Gospels. Tt 
was first requisite, he states, that the religion should be preached and established , 
and a large number of converts made. The apostles, says Eusebius, spread the 
Gospel over the world ; nor were they (at the first) much concerned to writes be- 



CHARGES. 


247 


without reference to, or any use made, or e\en the pre¬ 
tended existence of any Christian writings at all, nor till 
after the period when St. Paul says the Gospel had already 
been “ preached to every creature under heaven.” # 

After the substance of the matter which had thus at¬ 
tained extensive prevalence and general belief before it 
was committed to writings of any sort, appeared in written 
documents, it is not only not likely that the people who 
had been already “rooted and built up in the faith” with¬ 
out any service or help of such writings, should have 
much valued or sought for means of grace that they had 
so long done without ; but it is absolutely certain that 
they continued to do without them ; nor was it at any 
time within the three first centuries, that the general com¬ 
munity of Christians were permitted to know what the 
contents of their Scriptures were. 

And 2ndly. When the time had arrived that the charge 
of plagiarism against the Christian Scriptures, if tenable, 
should have been brought forward, the priests, in whose 
hands alone the Scriptures were to be found, had acquired 
such tremendous power and influence as to procure, by 
the decrees of Constantine and Theodosius, that all wri¬ 
tings of Porphyry and others, that had been composed 
against the Christian faith, should be committed to the 
flames; and happy was the writer who got out of the way 
time enough to escape the fate of his writings. 


charge 2 . 

“ Among the various calumnies with which the wor¬ 
shippers of Christ were formerly assailed,” says the learn¬ 
ed Sebastian Kortholt,f “ the first place is justly given to 

ing engaged in a most excellent ministry, exceeding all human power.”— Elsley's 
Jin not. vol. 1, p. 11. What says reason ■ > 

* ujf y e continue grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the 
hope of the Gospel, which ye have heard, and which was prea'hed to every 
creature under heaven, whereof I, Paul, am made a deacon .”—Col. i. 23. 
Oo tytroutjv syai IIuvXoc; fiiaxovoc. 

When will men learn to see with their own eyes, and reason with their own 
understandings ?—1. This Paul owns himself a deacon, the lowest ecclesiastical 
o-fade of the'rharapeutan church. 2. This epistle was written two years before 
any one of our gospels. 3. The gospel of which it speaks had been extensively 
preached and fully established before the reign of Augustus ! 

t Kortholti Paganus Obtrectator, Kiloni, a. r>. 1698, p. 1. In extracts from 
this work, I claim the liberty of giving my own translation, without affixing more 
than the note of chapter and page from the original, except where there seems a 
strength in the original which the rendering might be thought to have enha iced. 



248 


CHARGES. 


'the charge that they had brought in new and unheard-of 
rites, and that they sought to contaminate the holy purity 
of the religious ceremonies of antiquity, by the supersti¬ 
tion of their novelty.” . 

THE ANSWER. 

From this charge the Christians only attempted to vin¬ 
dicate themselves, by proving the most exact sameness 
and conformity of their doctrines and tenets to the purest 
and most respectable forms of the ancient idolatry : a 
mode of argument as serviceable to their cause, then, as in 
all inference of reason it is fatal now. Who-would expect, 
among the very first and ablest advocates of a religion 
that had been revealed in the person of a divine prophet 
who had' appeared in a province of the Roman empire, 
under the reign of the emperor Tiberius, such admissions 
as those of their Justin Martyr, that “ what we say of 
our Jesus Christ is nothing more than what you say 
of those whom you style the sons of Jove ? As to his 
being born of a virgin, you have your Perseus to balance 
that; as to his being crucified, there’s Bacchus, Hercules, 
Pollux and Castor, to account for that; and as to rising 
from the dead, and ascending into heaven, why, you 
know, this is only what you yourselves ascribe to the 
souls of your departed emperors.”* What short of an 
absolute surrender of all pretence to an existence dis¬ 
tinctive and separate from Paganism, is that never-to be- 
forgotten, never-to-be-overlooked, and I am sure never- 
to-be-answered capitulation of their Melito, bishop of 
Sardis, in which, in an apology delivered to the emperor 
Marcus Antoninus, in the year 170,f he complains of 
certain annoyances and vexations which Christians were 
at that time subjected to, and for which he claims redress 
from the justice and piety of that emperor : first, on the 
score that none of his ancestors had ever persecuted the 
professors of the Christian faith, Nero and Domitian only , 
who had been equally hostile to their subjects of all per¬ 
suasions, having been disposed to bring the Christian 
doctrine into hatred ; and even their decrees had been 
reversed, and their rash enterprises rebuked, by the godly 
ancestors of Antoninus himself.” An absolute demon¬ 
stration this, that all the stories of persecution suffered 
by Christians on the score of their religion are utterly 

* See this passage in its place and relevancy, in the Chapter on Justin Martyt . 

+ See this also, under the head - Melito , in this Diegesis. 


CHARGES. 


249 


untrue. And, secondly, the good bishop claims the pa¬ 
tronage of the emperor for the Christian religion, which 
he calls our philosophy, “ on account of its high antiquity, 
as having been imported from countries lying beyond the 
limits of the Roman empire, in the reign of his ancestor 
Augustus, who had found its importation ominous of good 
fortune to his government.” An absolute demonstration 
this, that Christianity did not originate in Judea, which 
was a Roman province, but really was an exotic oriental 
fable, imported about that time from the barbarians, and 
mixed up with the infinitely mongrel modifications of Ro¬ 
man piety, till it outgrew the vigour of the stock on which 
it had been engrafted, and so came to give its own char¬ 
acter entirely to the whole system. 

The adoption of the fabulous Chrishna of the Hindus 
per conveyance of the Egyptian monks into the Roman 
empire, having taken place in or about the reign of Augus¬ 
tus, gave occasion to later historians to pretend that Christ 
was born in the reign of Augustus ; and to all that confu¬ 
sion which arises from the adversaries of Christianity 
charging it with novelty, while its earliest advocates chal¬ 
lenge for it the highest and most remote antiquity.* 


charge 3. 

In the edict of Diocletian, preserved in the fragments of 
Hermogenes, the Christians are called Manichees. It suffi¬ 
ciently appears that the Gentiles in general confounded the 
Christians and Manichees, and that there really was no 
difference, or appeared to be none, between the followers 
of Christ and of Manes. Let who will or can, determine 
the curious question, whether Manes and his followers 
were heretical seceders from Christianity, or whether those 
who afterwards acquired the name of Christians, were her¬ 
etics from the primitive sect of Manichees. The admitted 
fact of the existence of upwards of ninety different here¬ 
sies, or manners and variations of the telling of the Gos¬ 
pel story, within the three first centuries, is proof demon¬ 
strative that there could have been no common authority 
to which Christians could appeal, and, consequently, no 
Scriptures of higher claims than any of the innumerable 

* Kortholti Paganus Obtrectator, ch. 1. p. 5. Pertinet huic quod Gregoriu 
Nazianzenus afiiriuat, Christianam doctrinam veterem siinul et novarn esse.— Ib» 
dem, p. 10. 



250 


CHARGES. 


apocryphal versions, wherefrom to collect their opinions, or 
whereby to decide their controversies. It is admitted by 
Mosheim, that the more intelligent among the Christian 
people in the third century had been taught, that true 
Christianity as it was inculcated by Jesus, and not as it 
was afterwards corrupted by his disciples, differed in few 
points from the Pagan religion, properly explained and re¬ 
stored to its primitive purity ;* so that these good people 
very conveniently found the way of swimming with the 
tide, and were converted to Christianity, while they con¬ 
tinued as staunch Pagans as ever. But this, of course, 
could be viewed by a modern advocate of Christianity in 
no other light than as an invention of the enemy ; how¬ 
ever, it was neither a weak one in itself, nor unsuccessful 
in its issue. “ Many were ensnared,” says the Christian 
historian, “by the absurd attempts of these insidious 
philosophers. Some were induced by these perfidious strat¬ 
agems to abandon the Christian religion, which they had 
embraced. Others, when they were taught to believe 
that Christianity and Paganism, properly understood, were 
virtually but one and the same religion, determined to re¬ 
main in the religion of their ancestors, and in the worship 
of the gods and goddesses. A third sort were led, by 
these comparisons between Christ and the ancient philoso¬ 
phers, to form to themselves a motley system of religion, 
composed of the tenets of both parties, and paid divine 
honours indiscriminately to Christ and to Orpheus, to 
Apollonius, and the other philosophers and heroes, whose 
names had acquired celebrity in ancient times.” 


THE DOCTRINE OF MANES AND HIS HISTORY. 

Mani, properly so called, though more commonly Manes 
or Manichaeus, from whom the most important Christian 
sect that ever existed, takes its designation, was by birth 
a Persian, educated amongst the Magi, or wise men of the 
East, and himself originally one of that order. 

The ecclesiastical historian Socrates gives us this ac¬ 
count of him :— 

“Not long before the reign of Constantine, there sprang 
up a kind of heathenish Christianity , which mingled itself 

* Mosheim, vol. 1, cent. 3, chap. 2. Collate herewith the terms of compro¬ 
mise with Paganism offered by St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Gregory, and other holy 
popes. 



CHARGES. 


251 


with the true Christian religion ; for in those days the doc¬ 
trine of Empedocles, a heathen philosopher, was clandes¬ 
tinely introduced into Christianity. One Scythianus , a 
Saracen, had married a captive woman, native of the 
upper Thebais, and upon her account he lived in Egypt. 
Having been instructed in the learning of the Egyptians, 
he introduced the doctrine of Empedocles and Pythagoras 
into Christianity ; asserting the existence of two natures, 
the one good, the other evil, as Empedocles did, and call¬ 
ing the evil nature Neikos (Discord), and the good nature 
Philia (Friendship). Buddas, formerly named Terebinthus, 
became a disciple of that Scythianus; he travelled into 
Persia, where he told a great many strange stories of him¬ 
self,—as, that he was born of a virgin, and brought up in 
the mountains. Afterwards he wrote four books : one of 
which was entitled the Mysteries ; another the Gospel ; a 
third Thesaurus , or the Treasury ; the fourth a Summary. 
He pretended a power to work miracles ; but on one occa¬ 
sion, being on a high tower, the Devil threw him down, so 
that he broke his neck and died miserably.* The woman 
at whose house he had resided buried him, and succeeding 
to the possession of his property, bought a boy of seven 
vears old, whose name was Cubricus. This youth she 
adopted ; and after having given him his freedom, and a 
good education, she bequeathed him all the estate she had 
derived from Terebinthus, and the books which he had 
written according to the instructions of Scythianus his 
master. With these possessions and advantages, upon 
the death of his patroness, Cubricus went into Persia, 
and changed his name into Manes , and there gave out the 
books which Terebinthus had thus composed, under the 
direction of his master Scythianus, as his own original 
works. These books bore a show and colouring of Chris¬ 
tianity, but were in reality heathenish ; for the impious 
Manes directs the worship of many gods, teaches that the 
Sun ought to be adored. He introduces the doctrine of 
fatal necessity, and denies the free agency of man. He 
openly teaches the transmigration of souls ,\ as held by Py- 

* The reader, who may find this entire passage in Dr. Lardner’s Credibility, 
vol. 2, p. 141, will observe my variations from it. I take this liberty only upon 
the ^rounds of preference for my own translation of the original itself, which I hava 
on my table, and with which 1 compare the text of Lardner through every sen¬ 
tence. 

t The Pythagorean doctrines are still traceable in the Christian Scriptures : the 
Christ of St Jolrn’s Gospel is evidently a Pythagorean philosopher. Ye must bf 


252 


CHARGES. 


thagoras, Empedocles, and the Egyptians. He denies that 
Christ was ever really born, or had real human flesh, but 
asserts that he was a mere phantom. He rejects the law 
and the prophets, and calls himself the Paraclete or Com¬ 
forter: All which things are far from the true and right 
faith of the church of God. In his epistles he was not 
ashamed to entitle himself an apostle. At length his 
abominations met with their merited punishment.” 

“ The son of the king of Persia happening to have fallen 
into dangerous illness, his father, having both heard of 
Manichaeus, and believing his miracles to be true, sent for 
him as an apostle, and believed that his son would by his 
means be restored. Upon his arrival he takes the king’s 
son in hand, after the fashion of a conjuror * But the king 
having seen that the boy died under his hands, had him 
imprisoned, intending to put him to death ; but he made 
his escape, and came into Mesopotamia. The king of Per¬ 
sia, hearing that he was in those parts, sent after him, 
and, upon his second apprehension, had him flayed alive.” 
—This king of Persia was Varanes the First. 

Notwithstanding the calumnies heaped on Manes, Dr. 
Lardner has shown that he was, in the best and strictest 
acceptation of the term, a sincere Christian , and has adduced 
many passages from his writings equally honourable to hit? 
understanding and to his heart. Not only the learned 
Faustus,f Bishop of Melevi in Africa, whose tremendous 
charge against the authenticity of our canonical Gospels 
we have elsewhere given ; but others, by far the most 
learned, intelligent, and virtuous men that ever professed 
and called themselves Christians, were Manichseans, and 
among these was the renowned St. Augustin himself, till 
he found that higher distinctions and better emoluments 
were to be gained by joining the stronger party. Where¬ 
upon he left the poor presbytery of the Manichsean church, 
to become the orthodox bishop of Hippo Regius: and from 
thenceforth, with the zeal that always characterizes a 
turncoat he set himself to heap all the calumnies and mis¬ 
representations he possibly could upon that purer and 
more primitive Christianity which he had deserted; awk 

born again (John iii.), is the characteristic aphorism of the Pythagorean school. 
►Seethe Chapter xxxiii. entitled Pythagoras, in this Diegesis, p. 217. 

* AJtra T« tni7i).anTH (r/rfictTog tyxftQiLtTGii t or, &c. Dr. Lardner cuts me this 
knot with a skip in his"rendering. 

t Faustus flourished about a. d. 384 at the latest, and had been known to 
Augustin before that wily and mendacious saint apostatized from Manicheism to 
orthodoxy 


CHARGES. 


253 


wardly enough confessing, that he himself should never 
have believed the Gospel, unless the authority of the 
church had induced him* (paid him) to do so. There are, 
I fear, more than nineteen out of any twenty bishops that 
could be named, who owe their orthodoxy at this day to 
the same sort of inducement. 


DEMONSTRATION THAT NO SUCH PERSON AS JESUS CHRIST 
EVER EXISTED. 

There were two very different opinions concerning 
Christ very early among Christians. Some, as Augustin 
says,f believed Christ to be God, and denied him to be 
man ; others believed he was a man, and denied him to 
be God. The former was the opinion of the Manichees, 
and of many others before them ; of others so early, in¬ 
deed, and so certainly, that Cotelerius, in a note on Igna¬ 
tius’s Epistle to the Trallians, assures us that it would be 
as absurd as to question that the sun shone at mid-day, J 
to deny that the doctrine that taught that Christ’s body 
was a phantom only, and that no such person as Jesus 
Christ had ever any corporeal existence, was held in the 
time of the apostles themselves.§ Ignatius, the apostolic 
Father, expressly censures this opinion, as having gained 
ground even before his time. “ If, as some who are athe¬ 
ists—that is, unbelievers—say, that he only suffered in 
appearance, ||—an expression which, as Cotelerius ob¬ 
serves, plainly shows the early rise of this doctrine. 
And from the apostolic age downwards, in a never inter¬ 
rupted succession, but never so strongly and emphatically 
as in the most primitive times, was the existence of 
Christ as a man most strenuously denied. So that though 
nothing is so convenient to some persons as to assume 
airs of contempt, and to cry out that those who deny that 

* Ego evangelio nequa quam crediderim nisi ecclesiae auctoritas me commoveret. 
August, ut citat Michaelis. 

t Ait enirn Christus Deus esttantum, omnino hominis nihil habens. Hoc Mani- 
cheei dicunt. Photiarii, homo tantum. Manichei. Deus tantum.— August. Serm. 
37, c. 12. 

t As absurd as to question that the sun shone , fyc. Solem negaret meridie 
.ucere, qui Docetas, seu phantasiastas hsereticos temporibus aposlolorum inficiaretur 
erupisse.— Cotel. ad Ign. Kp. ad Trail, c. 10. 

§ Apostolis adhuc in seculo superstitibus, adhuc apud Judaeam ChrLsti sanguine 
recenti, phantasma Domini corpus asserebatur.— Hieron. adv. Lucif. T. 4, p. 
304. 

|| Ei <?£ oinntQ meg a-Oeot orreg, rovr’eariv amoroi, XeyovOtv no fioxeiv nenov - 
devai air or x. r. — Ign. ad Trail, c. 10, et passim. 

22 



254 


CHARGES. 


such a person as Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, are ut¬ 
terly unworthy of being’ answered, and would fly in the 
face of all historical evidence, the fact of the case is, that 
the being of no other individual mentioned in history ever 
laboured under such a deficiency of evidence as to its re¬ 
ality, or was ever overset by a thousandth part of the 
weight of proof positive , that it was a creation of imagina¬ 
tion only. 

To the question, then, On what grounds do you deny 
that such a person as Jesus Christ existed as a man ? the 
proper answer is, 

Because his existence as a man has, from the earliest 
day on which it can be shown to have been asserted, 
been as earnestly and strenuously denied, and that, not 
by enemies of the Christian name, or unbelievers of the 
Christian faith, but by the most intelligent, most learned, 
most sincere of the Christian name, who ever left the 
world proofs of their intelligence and learning in their 
writings, and of their sincerity in their sufferings ; 

And because the existence of no individual of the hu¬ 
man race, that was real and positive, was ever, by a like 
conflict of jarring evidence, rendered equivocal and uncer¬ 
tain. 


CHARGE 4 . 

It was distinctly charged against the early preachers of 
Christianity, that they had adopted and transferred to 
their own use the materials they found prepared to theii 
hands, in the writings of the ancient poets and philoso¬ 
phers ; and by giving a very slight turn to the matter, 
and a mere change of names, had vamped up a patchwork 
of mythology and ethics, a mixture of the Oriental Gnos 
ticism and the Greek Philosophy, into a system which 
they were for foisting upon the world as a matter of a 
divine revelation that had been especially revealed to 
themselves. “ All these figments of crack-brained opin- 
iatry and silly solaces played off in the sweetness of song 
by deceitful poets, by you too credulous creatures, have 
been shamefully reformed and made over to your own 
God.”* Such is the objection of Ccecilius, in the Octa¬ 
vius of Minucius Felix, written in dialogue, about the 

* Omnia ista figmenta malesanae opinionis, et inepta solatia, a poetis fallacibus, 
in dulcedinecarminis lusa, a vobis nimiurn credulis in Deurn vestrum, turpiter re- 
formata sunt .—Minucius Felix in Jipol. 



CHARGES. 


255 


year 211. A charge answered by admission, rather 
than denial, and corroborated by the never-to-be-forgotten 
fact, that the Egyptian Therapeuts in their university of 
Alexandria, where first Christianity gained an establish¬ 
ment, were professedly followers and maintainers of the Ec¬ 
lectic philosophy, which consisted in nothing else but this 
very overt and avowed practice of bringing together 
whatever they held to be useful and good in all other sys¬ 
tems ; and thus, as they pretended, concentrating all the 
rays of truth that were scattered through the world into 
the common centre of their own system. This is fully ad¬ 
mitted by Lactantius, Arnobius, Clemens Alexandrinus, 
and Origen; and denied by none who have ventured fear¬ 
lessly to investigate the real origin of Christianity. 


CHARGE 5. 

Porphyry,* whose very name is aconite to Christian in¬ 
tolerance, objects against Origen, that, being really a Pa¬ 
gan, and brought up in the schools of the Gentiles, he had, 
t) serve his own ambitious purposes, contrived to turn the 
whole Pagan system, which he had first egregiously cor¬ 
rupted, into the new-fangled theology of Christians. 


charge 6. 

Celsus, in so much of his work concerning the “ true 
Logos” as Origen has thought proper to suffer posterity to 
become acquainted with, charges the Christians with a re- 
coinage of the misunderstood doctrine of the ancient Logos.| 
Charges thus affecting the character of Origen , the great 
pillar of the Christian church, cannot fall innocent of 
wound on Christianity itself. Origen is the very first of all 
the fathers who has presented us with a catalogue of the 
books contained in the New Testament. He was the 
most laborious of all writers ; and his authoritative pen 
was alone competent to produce every iota of variation 
which existed between the old Pagan legends of the 
Egyptian Therapeuts and that new version of them 

* Porph yry.—Theodoret calls him ^anortfog t]iu» moXtinoc, and O narrwv tjfut 
t x&inrvc. Augustin calls him “ Christianorum acerrimus inimicus.” 
t Quasi refingerent— Ta jov naXuiov Aoyov na^xovo^ara. —Lib. 3. 




256 


CHARGES. 


which first received from him the designation of the Neu 

Testament 


ADMISSIONS OF BISHOP HERBERT MARSH. 

Bishop Marsh, in his Michaelis, the highest authority 
we could possibly appeal to on this subject,! admits, that 
“ it is a certain fact, that several readings in our common 
printed text are nothing more than alterations made by 
Origen, whose authority was so great in the Christian 
church, that emendations which he proposed, though, as 
he himself acknowledged, they were supported by the ev¬ 
idence of no manuscript, were very generally received.”! 
The reader will do himself the justice to recollect, that 
Origen lived and wrote in the third century, and that “no 
manuscript of the New Testament now extant is prior to 
the sixth century; and, what is to be lamented, various 
readings which, as appears from the quotations of the Fa¬ 
thers, were in the text of the Greek Testament, are to be 
found in none of the manuscripts which are at present re¬ 
maining.” § 


ADMISSIONS, TO THE SAME EFFECT, OF THE EARLY FATHERS. 

To charges of such pregnant inference, we find our 
Christian Fathers, in like manner, making answers that 
only serve to authenticate those charges ; to demonstrate 
that they were founded in truth and not in malice ; and 
that, answered as they were, and as any thing may be, 
they were utterly irrefragible. 

“ You observe the philosophers,” says Minucius Felix , “ to 
have maintained precisely the same things as we Chris¬ 
tians, but not so is it on account of our having copied from 
them, but because they, from the divine preachings of the 
prophets, have imitated the shadow of truth interpolated : 
thus the more illustrious of their wise men, Pythagoras 
first, and especially Plato, with a corrupted and half-faith 

* See the chapter on Origen. 

t “ The Introduction to the New Testameat by Michaelis, late professor at Got¬ 
tingen, as translated by Marsh, is the standard work, comprehending all that is 
important on the subject .”—The learned Bishop of Llandaff , quoted in Els 
ley's Annotations on the Gospels, vol. 1. (the introd.), p. xxvi. 

% Michaelis’s Introduction to New Test., by Bishop Marsh, vol. 2, p. 368. 

§ Ibid. vol. 2, p 160 






* 


CHARGES 257 

have handed down the doctrine of regeneration.”* And 
Lactantius, after admitting the truth of the story, that 
man had been made by Prometheus out of clay,—adds, 
that the poets had*not touched so much as a letter of 
divine truth; but those things which had been handed 
down in the vaticination of the prophets, they collected 
from fables and obscure opinion, and having taken suffi¬ 
cient care purposely to deprave and corrupt them, in that 
wilfully depraved and corrupted state they made them the 
subjects of their poems.f 

Tertullian calls the philosophers of the Gentiles the 
thieves, the interpolators, and the adulterators of divine 
truth; alleges, that “ from a design of curiosity they put 
our doctrines into their works, not sufficiently believing 
them to be divine to be restrained from interpolating them, 
and that they mixed that which was uncertain with what 
they found certain. 

Eusebius pleads, that the Devil, being a very notorious 
thief, stole the Christian doctrines, and carried them over 
for his friends, the Pagan philosophers and poets, to make 
fun of.§ 

Theodoret accuses Plato especially, with having pur¬ 
posely mixed muddy and earthy filth with the pure foun¬ 
tain from which he drew the arguments of his theology.|| 

Thus, if we may believe Eusebius, the beautiful fable 
of Ovid’s Metamorphosis, describing Phaeton falling from 
the chariot of his father, the Sun, was nothing more than 
a wicked corruption of the unquestionable truth of the 
prophet Elijah having been caught up to heaven, as 
described (2 Kings ii.), “ Behold there appeared a chariot of 
fire , and horses of fire , and Elijah went up by a whirlwind 
into heaven the heathens being so ignorant as to con¬ 
found the name Helias with Helios, the Greek word for 
the Sun. 

The almost droll Justin Martyr gives us a most satis 
factory explanation of the whole matter; that “ it having 
reached the Devil’s ears that the prophets had foretold 
that Christ would come for the purpose of tormenting the 

* Quoted in Paganus Obtrectator, p. 34. 

t Lactantii instit. lib. 3, cap. 10. Sic etiam conditionem renascend- sapien- 
tium clariores, Pythagoras primus, et praecipuus Plato, corrupta et div««diata fide 
tradiderunt.— Min. Felix. 

t Tertul. Apolog. cap. 46, 47. 

§ KXenrrjg yaQ o JiafloXoc xat ra rjiirrtQa txytQopvdwv nqog xovg ettvxov vno 
tptjrag. — Euseb. procudubin sed perdidi locum. 

|| Eg tjg ovrog lapwv xrjg JsoXoyiag rag at poyftag to tXrmdsg xai jir*ui%tv, 

. —Theodoritus Therapeut. libro 2, de Platone loquens . 

23 * 


258 


CHARGES. 


wicked in fire, he set the heathen poets to bring* forward a 
great many who should be called (and were called) sons 
of Jove. The Devil laying his scheme in this, to get men 
to imagine that the true history of Christ was of the same 
character as those prodigious fables and poetic stories.”* 
I render from the beautiful Greek of Theodoret, a pas¬ 
sage of considerable elegance, in which the reader will 
trace the rising dignity of style, superior manner, and cul¬ 
tivated taste with which an historian of the fourth century 
could improve and varnish the awkward sophistry of the 
honester Christian Father of the second:— 

“ But if the adversaries of truth (our Pagan opponents) 
so very much admired the truth, as to adorn their own 
writings even with the smallest portions they could pillage 
from it, and these, though mixed with much falsehood, 
yet dimmed not their proper beauty, but shone like pearls 
resplendent through the squalors in which they lay, so 
that, according to the evangelical doctrine, the light 
shone in the darkness, and by the darkness itself was not 
concealed; we may easily understand how lovely and ad¬ 
mirable the divine doctrines must be, secerned from false¬ 
hood, for so differs the gem in its rough matrix, from what 
it is when seen resplendent in a diadem. ”f 


charge 7. 

The Emperor Julian—who, with all his imperfections 
on his head, was an ornament to human nature, and can 
by no means be conceived to have wanted any possible 
means of information on the subject—objects against the 
claims of Christianity, what a thousand testimonies con¬ 
firm, that it was a mixture of the Jewish superstition and 
Greek philosophy, so as to incorporate the Atheism of the 
one with the loose and dissolute manner of living of the 
other. “If any one,” says he, “ should wish to know the 

* Axovaavrtg yaq naQaytvrjCioutrov rov /Qiorov , xai xoXa&rjooptrovg dia nvgog 
T ovg ccrtptie, nQos(iaXXovro noXXovg Xt/-dt]vat Xtyo/utrovg viovg tcd du , ropitovrtg 
ivvpntn&at tvtoyioai rtQaroXoyiav ijyrjoao-flat rovg av-dyomovg ra rov xqktiov , xai 
oiionog roic vno rov non]rov Xt/&ti(n. — Justini. Apolog. 2 . 

t Et xai oi njg aXij&tiag arnnaXoi ovro xouiSt] davfiatovai rtjv aXyj&tiav, og 
xat PQa/tni /uoQioig exti&tv atavXijpsroig tiiaxaXXvvtiv ra oixtia ^v/yyaitpara, xai 
710XX0 xfJtvSsi ravra /utyvvfitva ur\ afifiXvtiv ro aiptrtQov xaXXog, aAAa xav xonqia 
xai < poovru > xn/utvovg rovg pagyaQirag aarqanrtiv Xiav , xai xara ryv tvayytXixijv 
ia)any.aXiav, ro yog , tv rij axoria <pairtir, xai vno rijg axoriac , ptj xyvnrtodat 
1-vviSeiv tvntrtg, onog tanv acitQaara xai aiiayaora ra $tia ua&7,para rov \psv- 
iovg xtyogiaptva^noXXrv yag fiijnov fiiaynoav tyti paQyaqtrr t g tv paQpvQo xap.ivog 
xai tv SiaSr t fian Xaunov .— Theodoret. Therapeut. libro 2 



CHARGES. 


259 


truth with respect to you Christians, he will find your im¬ 
piety to be made up partly of the Jewish audacity, and 
partly of the indifference and confusion of the Gentiles, 
and that ye have put together, not the best, but the worst 
characteristics of them both.”* 

The answer to which charge, on the part of the advo¬ 
cates of Christianity, was, that they neither took them to 
be gods whom the Gentiles considered to be such, and so 
were not assimilated to the Gentiles; nor did they respect 
the deisidemony of the Jews, and so were not adherents 
to Judaism. Nor was it a small matter of triumph to their 
cause, to contrast the apparent contrariety of charges that 
were alleged against them, in that as Julian accused them 
of adopting the worst parts of Gentilism, Celsus had ac¬ 
cused them of selecting the best parts. 


THE CHARGES OF CELSUS. 

It is never to be forgotten, that the charges of Celsus 
stand only in the language in which Origen has been 
pleased to invest them; nor is it any very monstrous 
phenomenon that such wholly different characters as Julian 
and Celsus were, should either of them, with equal con¬ 
scientiousness, have esteemed those self same things the 
best, which the other considered the worst parts of Gen¬ 
tilism. 

Celsus, an Epicurean philosopher, might very naturally 
think that an impostor acted with sound policy in giving 
to his new-fangled system all the advantages it could de¬ 
rive from the closest convenient conformity to the Epicu¬ 
rean carelessness of living, and indulgence in innocent, 
or even in perhaps not quite innocent pleasures; while 
Julian, all whose virtues were of the severest and most 
rigid self-restraint, looked with horror on the license which 
the doctrines of the apostolic chief of sinners had seemed 
to countenance in the lives and manners of the Christians. 
The charge of the Emperor Julian is in striking coinci¬ 
dence of verisimilitude with the apparent fact of the case, 
that Paul of Tarsus, who, in his Epistle to the Colossians, 
calls himself a deacon of the Gospel,f and who could have 
stood in that humble grade, only as a servant and mis- 

* Emg vntQ vuoiv e&sXoi oxontiv evQyjasi r tjv vptTsgav oasfitiav sxts rrjg tovSai- 
xtjg ToX^yjg xai rtjg naQa Toig t&vtmv atitacpoQtav xai /vdaioTyjTog (rvYxsiptvrjv, e£ 
auipoiv yaQ ovti to xaXXtarwv aXXa to xeiyov eXxvoavTig naQvwvv xax u>v tifiyaouaSt 
—Julian apud Cyrill , lib. 2. 
t That is in the Greek text. 



260 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


sionary from the Therapeutan college; schematised from 
the church, and set up in trade for himself. He opposed 
the ascetic discipline in which he had been trained, and 
thus drew to his party that large majority of ignoramuses 
which in all ages and countries are eager to embrace every 
part of superstition but its mortifications and restraints. 
There were innumerable other charges brought against the 
early Christians, which, as they impinge on their moral 
character only, and might be either true or false without 
materially affecting the evidences of the religion they pro¬ 
fessed, lie beyond the scope of this Diegesis. Their 
amount in evidence is, that they sustain the fact, that 
whatever the principles and conduct of Christians may be 
supposed to have been, they were never such as to con¬ 
quer the prejudices or to conciliate the affections of their 
fellow men. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny have spoken 
of them in the most disparaging terms; and though it 
might be that those really wise and good men were unfair¬ 
ly prejudiced, yet it must cost any man who is not preju¬ 
diced himself, an effort to think so. 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES ADDUCED FROM CHRISTIAN 
WRITINGS. 

The New Testament is in every one’s hands: the claims 
of the four gospels therein contained we have already 
considered. 

The thirteen epistles, purporting to have been written 
by an early convert to Christianity, who was before a blas¬ 
phemer ', a persecutor , and injurious;* the anonymous epistle 
to the Hebrews; the one of James; one of Jude; two of 
Peter; three of John: and the Apocalypse, or Revelation 
of St. John the Divine; though all of them, except the 
Apocalypse, are admitted to have been written before 
any one of the four gospels; are entirely without date, 
and will read as well to an understanding or supposition 
of their having been written five or six hundred, or 
even a thousand years, either earlier or later than the 
period to which they are. usually assigned. Certain it 


♦ 1 Tim. i 15. 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


261 


is, tliat they contain not a single phrase of a nature or 
significancy to fix with any satisfactory probability the 
time when they were written; but from beginning to end 
they proceed on the recognition of an existing church 
government and an established ecclesiastical polity which, 
on the supposition of its origination in events that hap¬ 
pened later than the time of Augustus, must outrage all 
our knowledge of history, and ail common sense, to be 
reconciled with the supposition of their having been writ¬ 
ten by the persons to whom they are ascribed: as ’tis 
certain that no such state of church government, that could 
be properly called Christian, existed or could have existed 
among the followers of a religion which had originated in 
the age of Augustus, or among any persons who had been 
his contemporaries. 

The Acts of the Apostles is evidently a broken narra¬ 
tive, and gives us no account whatever of what became 
of the immediate disciples of Christ, or how or with what 
success they executed the important commission they had 
received from their divine master; save, that Judas the 
traitor is said to have come to a violent death, as a judg¬ 
ment of God upon his perfidy; and that Peter and John 
were imprisoned as impostors, after having received the 
Holy Ghost, and been endued with the gift of speaking all 
the languages of the earth (a miracle which no rational 
being on earth believes); and that James was put to death 
by Herod. 

The last account we have of Peter in the sacred histo¬ 
ry, requires us to believe, that after having been delivered 
from prison by the intervention of an angel, his chains 
falling off, and the ponderous iron gate opening of his own 
accord , “ he went down from Judea to Csesarea, and there 
abode.”* 

The last we learn of Paul is, that “ Paul dwelt two 
whole years in his own hired house, and received all that 
came into him; preaching the kingdom of God, and teach¬ 
ing those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, 
with all confidence, no man forbidding him.” 

The evident air and aim of this account, as far as it 
goes, is palpably incompatible with any notion of the 
apostles having suffered martyrdom; it rather seems to 
make an ostentation of their prodigious success, and their 
perfect prosperity and security, and that too in Rome, in 


* Acts xii. 19. 


262 


Christian Evidences, 


the immediate neighbourhood, and under the government 
of the tyrant Nero: while the insinuation at least with 
respect to the melancholy end of Judas, is , that the apos¬ 
tles themselves would have considered martyrdom as dis¬ 
honourable to their religion, and their being put to violent 
and cruel deaths, an indication of the divine displeasure, 
as it is evidently represented to have been, upon Judas.* 
The names and order of the twelve apostles, in the last 
list we have of them, are 

1. Peter, 5. Philip, 9. James Alpheus, 

2 James, 6. Thomas, 10: Simon Zelotes, 

3 John, 7. Bartholomew, 11. Jude, the brother of James, 

4. Andrew, 8 Matthew, 12. Matthias. 


In the Lives of the Apostles, written by the eunuch Doro- 
theus , bishop of Tyrus, who died a. d. 366, we have the 
following brief account of the apostles respectively: 

1. Simon Peter. 

Simon Peter is the chief of the apostles. He, as we 
are given to understand by his epistles, preached the Gos¬ 
pel of our Lord Jesus Christ in Pontus, Galatia, Cappado¬ 
cia, Bithynia, and in the end preached at Rome, where, 
afterwards, he was crucified, the third kalends of July, 
under Nero the emperor, with his head downwards (for 
that was his desire), and there also buried. 

2. James. 

James , the son of Zebedee, a fisherman, preached the 
Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ unto the twelve dispersed 
tribes. He was slain with the sword, by Herod the te 
trarch, in Judea, where also he was buried. 

3. John. 

John , the brother of James, who was also an evangelist, 
whom the Lord loved, preached the Gospel of our Lord 
Jesus Christ in Asia. The emperor Trajan exiled him 
into the Isle of Patmos for the word of God, where he 
wrote also his gospel, the which afterwards he published 
at Ephesus, by Gaius, his host and deacon. After the 
death of Trajan, he returned out of the Isle of Patmos, 
and remained at Ephesus, until he had lived a hundred 
and twenty years, at the end of which, he being yet in 
full health and strength (for the Lord would have it sob 

* See this question settled in the chapter on Martyrdom. 



CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


2G3 


digged his own grave, and bnried himself alive. There 
are some which write that he was not banished into the 
Isle of Patmos under Trajan, but in the time of Domitian, 
the son of Vespasian. 

The translator of this John, St. Jerome, quotes the au¬ 
thority of Tertullian to prove, that in the time of Nero, 
he was thrown at Rome into a tun of hot boiling oil, and 
thereby he took no harm, but came forth after his trial 
purer than when he went in. St. Augustine relates, that 
u after St. John had made his grave at Ephesus, in the 
presence of divers persons, he went into it alive, and 
being no sooner in, and as appeared to the by-standers, 
dead, they threw the earth in upon him, and covered him- 
but that kind of .rest was rather to be termed a state ol 
sleep than of death; for that the earth of the grave bub- 
bleth and boileth up to this day after the manner of a 
well, by reason of John resting therein and breathing — 
a sign that he only slumbereth there, but is not really 
dead! And till Christ shall come again, thus he remains, 
plainly showing that he is alive by the heaving up of the 
earth, which is caused by his breathing; for the dust is 
believed to ascend from the bottom of the tomb ‘to the 
top, impelled by the state of him resting beneath it. 
Those who know the place,” adds this conscientiously 
veracious Father, “ must have seen the earth thus 
heave up and down; and that it is certainly truth, we 
are assured, as having heard it from no light-minded 
witnesses.”* 


4. Andrew, 

The brother of Simon Peter, as our elders have deliv¬ 
ered unto us, preached the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ unto the Scythians, Sogdians, Sacians, and in the 
middle Sebastopolis inhabited of wild Ethiopians. He 
was crucified by iEgeas, king of the Edessaens, and buried 
at Patris, a city of Achaia. 

* “ Idem Augustinus asserat Apostolum .Tohannem vivere atque in illo sepul 
chro ejus, quod est apud Ephesum, dorrnire eurn potius quaa:« mortuum jacere 
contendat. Assumat in arguinentum quod illic terra sensim seatere et quasi 
ebuUire perhibeatur, atque hoc ejus anhelitu fieri. Et cum rnortuus putaretur, 
sepultum fuisse dormientem, et donee Christus veniat, sic manere, ouamque vitarn 
scaturigine pulveris .indicare : qui pulvis creditur ut ab imo ad superficiem tumuli 
ascendat statu quescentis impelli. . . . Viderint qui locum sciunt—quia et rev. ra, 
non a levibus horninibus id audivimus. Ad hanc rem satis superque sa'i es- 
tificandam utur.—Fabricii Codice Apocrypho , tom. 2, p. 590, in nolis. 


264 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


5. Philip. 

Philip , of the city of Bethsaida, preached the Gospel in 
Phrygia; he was honourably buried at Hierapolis, with 
his daughters. In Acts viii. 39, Philip is described as pos¬ 
sessing the power of rendering himself invisible. 

6. Thomas, 

As it hath been delivered unto us,* preached the Gospel of 
our Saviour Jesus Christ unto the Parthians, Medes, and 
Persians; he preached also unto the Caramans, Hircans, 
Bactrians, and Magicians! He rested at Calamina, a city 
in India , being slain with a dart, where he was also hon¬ 
ourably buried. 

7. Bartholomew 

Preached the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ unto the 
Indians , and delivered unto them the gospel of Matthew. 
He rested, and was buried in Albania, a city of Armenia 
the Great. 

The translator , Peter de Natalibus, informs us, that this 
St. Bartholomew was nephew to the king of Syria. An- 
tonius, in his Chronicle, writeth, that some have delivered 
that he was beaten to death with cudgels; some, that he 
was crucified with his head downwards; others, that he 
was flayed alive; and others, that he was beheaded, at the 
commandment of Ptolemseus, king of India; but Peter de 
Natal, together with Abdias, bishop of Babylon, reconcile 
the whole in this manner: how that the first day the apos¬ 
tle was beaten with cudgels, the second day crucified and 
flayed alive, and afterwards, while yet he continued to 
breathe, beheaded. 

With all due respect to such profoundly learned author¬ 
ities, I could suggest another way of reconciling the whole 
matter. This royal apostle was especially distinguished 
for his miraculous power of rendering himself invisible, 
and slipping through the key-hole into bed-chambers, for 
the greater convenience of giving lectures to young ladies, 
on the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary.f This 
faculty he possessed in common with St. Philip. 

* Surely this is a very suspicious sort of u ording for the first and earliest testi¬ 
mony that can be pretended to the existence of so extraordinary a r l homas. 

t Et. Cfepit quaerere Apostolum, sed non invenit eum amplius. Factum est 
r.utern ut apparuit Apostolus ostio clauso in cubiculo ipsius dicens nihil carnale 
desidero sed scire te volo quia filius Dei in virginis vulva conceptu?, inter ipsa 
•ecreta virginis. Ohe ! jam satis est! terque quaterque plus quani satis ! 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


265 


8. Matthew, 

The evangelist, wrote the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ in the Hebrew tongue, and delivered it unto James, 
the brother of the Lord according to the flesh, who was 
bishop of Jerusalem. He died at Hierapolis, in Parthia, 
where he also was honourably buried. 

9. James Alpheus. 

James, the son of Alpheus, was bishop of Jerusalem 
by the appointment of the other apostles. He was kiLed 
by St. Paul. Having been set by the Jews upon a pinna¬ 
cle of the temple, Saul, who was afterwards called Paul, 
thrust him off; and while yet he breathed after his fall, 
one came with a fuller’s club and brained him. 

10. Simon Zelotes. 

Simon Zelotes , that is, Simon the Fanatic , preached Christ 
throughout Mauritania and the Lesser Africa; at length he 
was crucified in Britannia , slain and buried. 

11. Jude. 

Jude, the brother of James, called also Thaddseus ar.d 
Lebbceus, preached unto the Edessmans, and throughout 
all Mesopotamia. He was slain at Berytus, in the time of 
Agbarus, king of Edessa, and buried very honourably. 

These two apostles, St. Simon and St. Jude, are generally 
mentioned together, and seem to have been inseparably 
united through the whole course of their truly incredible 
adventures. Their commemoration is kept by the church 
of England on the 28th day of October. Their conjoint 
miracles of healing all manner of diseases, raising the 
dead till churchyards were completely useless, and wor¬ 
rying and tormenting the poor devils till they l*»owled and 
squealed, and wished themselves back again in hell from 
whence they had issued; are but every-day work, common 
to them with all the rest of the apostolic community. But 
they were more especially distinguished by their holy 
zeal, and their exertion of miraculous energies in protect¬ 
ing the moral character of those whom they had once 
admitted into holy orders. * “ They had with them many 

* Habebunt autem secum discipulos multos, ex quibus ordinabant per civitatea 
presbyteros, et diaconos et clericos, et ecclesias multas constituebant. Factum est 
autem ut unus ex diaconibus pateretur crimen incesti. Erat enim vicinus filiae 
Satrapae cujusdam ditissimi hominis, quae perdita virginitate partum edens pericli- 
tabatur. Interrogata autem a parentibus virum Dei sanctum et castum Euphrosi- 
num diaconuin impetebat. Q,ui tentus a parentibus puellae urgebatur suhire vin- 


260 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES* 


disciples, out of whom they ordained in every city, priests, 
deacons and clerks, and for whom they built innumerable 
churches. It happened that one of their deacons was 
accused of criminal conversation. The daughter of a 
wealthy satrap being found in the plight of the Virgin 
Mary, after she had received the salutation of the angel 
Gabriel, but not able, like her, to persuade the world that 
her pregnancy resulted from the obumbration of the Holy 
Ghost, upon being questioned by her parents, swore her 
child upon the chaste and holy deacon Euphrosinus, upon 
whom her parents were for taking the law; which, when 
the apostles St. Simon and St. Jude heard, they came 
instantly to the girl’s parents, who, upon seeing the 
apostles, loudly accused the deacon of the crime. Then 
the apostle said, 4 When was the child born?’ And they 
answered, 4 This very day, at one o’clock.’ Then said 
they, 4 Bring the infant and this deacon, whom you accuse, 
together before us.’ And, upon the infant and the deacon 
being confronted, the apostles addressed the new-born 
babe, and said, 4 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
speak and tell us if this deacon got you.’ Whereupon 
the babe, with most perfect and complete eloquence, 
answered, 4 Gentlemen, I assure you that this deacon is 

holy and chaste, and has never-.’ (The reader must 

translate the rest on’t for himself—the young one was a 
bit of a wag.) But the parents of the girl insisted that 
the apostles should make the child tell (if the deacon was 
not his father) who else was . The apostles answered and 
said, 4 Oh, no; it is our place only to absolve the inno¬ 
cent, not to betray the guilty.’ ” There was evidently a 
good understanding between the apostles themselves and 
the young one. 

12. Matthias. 

Matthias , being one of the seventy disciples , was after¬ 
wards numbered with the eleven apostles , in the room of 

dictam. Q,uod ubi Apostoli audiverunt, venerunt ad parentes puellae. At illi cum 
adspexissent apostolos, caeperent clamare et diaconum reum hujus criminis accusare. 
Turn Apostoli: quando inquiunt natus est puer? responderunt hodie hora diei pri- 
ma. Dieunt ei apostoli. Perducite hue infantem, et diaconum quern accusatis 
hue pariter adducite. Cumque in praesentia essent, alloquuntur apostoli infantem, 
dicentes: “In nomine Domini nostri Jesu Christi loquere, et die si iste diaconus 
praesumserit hanc iniquitatem.” Turn infans absolutissimo sermone ait, “ Hie dia 
conus, vir sanctas et castus est et nunquam inquinavit camem suam.” Rursus au 
tern insistebant parentes Apostolis, ut de persona infans interrogaretur incesti. Qui 
dixerunt: nos innocentes solvere decet, et nocentes prodere non decet.— De SS 
Simone et Juda Abdice Historia Apostolir.a, lib. 6, c. 18. 



CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


267 


Judas the traitor. He preached the Gospel in Ethiopia, 
about the haven called Hyssus and the river Phasis, unto 
barbarous nations and cannibals. He died at Sebasto- 
polis, and was buried near the temple of the Sun. 

CEPHAS. 

It appears from the Catalogue of Dorotheus, that Cephas, 
who was one of the seventy disciples, and not one of the 
twelve apostles, was the person whom Paul reprehended 
at Antioch, and that he was bishop of Cannia. For though 
Cephas is a Syriac word of the same sense and signifi- 
cancy as Peter, or Petra , a rock ,* yet have we this positive 
testimony of Dorotheus, who wrote earlier than Eusebius, 
and all the conceivable congruities of the case, supported 
by the explicit and positive testimony of Eusebius, and of 
Clemens Alexandrinus, that Cephas and Peter were wholly 
distinct personages.f By this understanding we evade 
the revolting absurdity of the supposition, that Paul, a 
late convert, should have taken upon himself to withstand 
Peter to the face, when he was come to Antioch (Gal. ii), 
while we retain the other horn of the dilemma, that Paul 
has, in his 1st Epistle to the Corinthians (chap, xv.), giv¬ 
en an account of the resurrection of Christ, utterly irre- 
concileable with that of either of our four gospels.J 


ORIGIN OF THE ACTS OF THE APOSTLES. 

This critique is of most essential argument, inasmuch, 
as if valid, it tends to detect and cut off the sophistical 
artifice which would endeavour to connect the narrative 
and probable part of the Acts of the Apostles with the 
mystical personages and adventures of the Gospel, there¬ 
by aiming to reflect something of the air of historical 
probability which attaches to the mere journal of the 
voyages and travels of some schismatical missionaries 
from the Egyptian monasteries, upon the wholly super- 


* It is in French only that the miserable pun on St. Peter’s name is exact— 
•« Tu es Pierri et sur cette pierre .” The same is imperfect in Greek, Latin, 
Italian, &c. and totally unintelligible in our Teutonic languages. 

+ Hd’ idTooia naoa TCXtjusvn —ev tj xai Krjipav, ntQi ov (ptjcrtv o Having, ot* da 
tjXSt JCrjcpag tig Avno/tiav, xaxa TtQOOivTtov avrin avTtanjr, on xaxtyvwoptrog tjV % 
era ipr t (Ti yeyorevat Ton■ tfidourixovra ua&rjxun opojvvpov IIstqoi Tvyyavovra Tin 
anodToltn. —Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 1, c. 12, C. 

t Neither the Pfter nor the Judas of the Acts of the Apostles are the same 
characters as the Peter and Judas of the Gospels, nor can the two histories be fair- 
'y reconciled. 



268 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


natural dramatis personae, of the Gospel, and to make the 
one seem a sequel and a continuation of the other. 

To this device solely, we owe the canonicity of the 
Acts of the Apostles, an evident fragment as it is, and an 
awkward jumble of fiction and fact, romance and real his¬ 
tory. It was held necessary (so as it were to bring heaven 
and earth together) that some account, it mattered not 
what, should be crammed down the gaping throat of that 
natural curiosity which would want to know what became 
of the glorious company of the apostles after they had seen 
Jesus Christ ascend up through the clouds, pass through 
Orion’s belt, and take his chair at the right hand of God. 
So late, however, as a. d. 407, or the beginning of the fifth 
century, the Acts of the Apostles had not gained general 
acceptance, or was rather too gross a finesse even for the 
credulity of the faithful. 

Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople at that time, in 
his first homily upon the title and beginning of this legend, 
says, “ To many this book is unknown, by others it is 
despised, because it is clear and easy.” The first of his 
homilies upon the whole book begins with the sentence, 
u By many this book is not at all known, neither (the book) 
itself, nor who wrote and put it together.”* 


CASE OF ST. JUDAS ISCARIOT. 

Judas Iscariot , though thrown out of the list of apostles, 
by an apparent conspiracy of the rest against him, had, 
in the contexture of the Gospel-story, certainly been 
chosen and appointed to the apostleship by Christ himself, 
had received and exercised the gift of miracles, had cast 
cut as many devils, healed as many patients, and restored 
as many dead folks to life, as any of his apostolic brethren. 
His being the treasurer of the Mendicity Society, having 
the bag, and bearing what was put therein, is a strong 
presumption that he was the most trustworthy among 
them. The sincerity and the intensity of his repentance 
for having betrayed Jesus—his returning the wages of 
iniquity which he had received, and above all, his offering 
himself to the imminent hazard of death, by coming for¬ 
ward and protesting to the innocence of his master, when 
qll his other disciples forsook him and fled, and then 

* JJoXXoig rovro (iifiXiov ovSotiovv yroiQipov sOtiv, ovt t avro , ovrt o ygaifjag av to 
xa (UjrOsig. — Tg, p. 1. Compare with Dr. Lardner’s futile recalcitration, quoted 
in our Chapter of Admissions, p. 41. 



CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


269 


terminating his own life in an agony of sorrow for his 
fault; are alleviating considerations, which must render 
him, with all but bad-hearted people, rather an object of 
pity than of hatred; and when Peter, who cursed and 
swore, and lied and perjured, till the very cock crowded 
shame on him , was forgiven upon a wink , Judas must cer¬ 
tainly be considered as having been very unfairly used. 
But no ingenuity of critical chicane can reconcile the 
character of the Judas of the gospels with the personage 
who bears the same name in the Acts of the Apostles; they 
are wholly different characters. 

The Judas of the Gospels The Judas of the Acts 

Repented ; Did not repent; 

Returned the money to the chief Kept the money for his own use; 
priests and elders ; 

Cast it down in the temple, and Bought a field with it; 
departed ; 

Died by his own act and will. Died by accident. 


Next to the immediate apostles, in apostolic dignity, and 
first of all real personages whose existence there is no 
reason to doubt, however much there may be to question 
whether their adventures- and performances were such as 
have been ascribed to them, are the two unapostolical 
evangelists, Mark and Luke, and that least of the apostles , 
who xoas not meet to be called an apostle,* Paul of Tarsus, the 
apostolic chief of sinners A 

Mark 

The evangelist, according to Eusebius, was bishop ol 
Alexandria. “ He preached the Gospel,” says Dorotheus, 
u unto the people of Alexandria, and all the bordering re¬ 
gions from Egypt unt*) Pentapolis. In the time of Trajan, 
he had a cable-rope tied about his neck at Alexandria, by 
which he was drawn from the place called Bucolus unto 
the place called Angels , where he was burned to ashes by 
the furious idolaters, in the month of April, and buried at 
Bucolus. 

Luke 

The evangelist, of the city of Antioch, by profession a 
physician ( i . e. a Therapeut), wrote the Gospel as he 

* 1 Cor, xv, 9. t 1 Tim. i. 15. 



270 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


heard Peter the apostle preach, and the Acts of the 
Apostles as Paul delivered unto him. He accompanied 
the apostles in their peregrinations, but especially Paul. 
He dieef at Ephesus, where he was also buried;* and after 
many years, together with Andrew and Timothy, he was 
translated to Constantinople, in the time of Constantius, 
the son of Constantinus Magnus. 

Paul, 

Being called of the Lord Jesus Christ himself after his 
assumption, and numbered in the catalogue of the apostles, 
began to preach the Gospel from Jerusalem, and travelled 
through Illyricum, Italy, and Spain. His epistles are ex¬ 
tant at this day full of all heavenly wisdom.f He was 
beheaded at Rome under Nero, the third kalends of July, 
so died a martyr, and lieth there, buried with Peter the 
apostle.”—Thus far Dorotheas. 

Though there can be no doubt of the existence of St. 
Paul, of his being entirely such a character as he is in the 
New Testament represented to have been, and that the 
epistles which go under his name are competently authentic, 
and such as without a most unphilosophical and futile 
litigiousness, no man would think of denying to have 
been written by him, excepting only a few immaterial 
interpolations; yet for the fact of his having been be¬ 
headed by order of Nero, or having suffered martyrdom 
in any way, we have no better authority than such as 
those who would have us believe it, would be ashamed to 
produce; that is, neither other nor better authority than 
that of Linus, the imaginary successor of the imaginary 
St. Peter in the bishopric of Rome, who would persuade 
us, that “after Paul’s head was struck off by the sword 
of the executioner, it did with a loud and distinct voice 
utter forth, in Hebrew, the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
while, instead of blood, it was nought but a stream of 
pure milk that flowed from his veins;” or that of Abdias, 
bishop of Babylon, who assures us, that when his head 

* The particular care which this historian shows for having all his saints and 
martyrs authentically buried is, to attest the identity of their relics, which retained 
their miraculous virtue for ages, and thus achieved as many miracles after their 
decease as they had ever done while living. From the time when these worthies 
were buried till the accession of Constantius must have been upwards of 300 yearn, 
so that in the natural order of things, every particle of their bodies must have 
evaporated or mouldered away; but Manet post funera virtus! 

f This heavenly wisdom is a very particular sort of wisdom. 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


271 


was cut off, instead of blood, ran milk, so that the milky 
wave flowed all over the sword, and washed over the ex¬ 
ecutioner’s arm.* 

In a church at Rome, at this day called At the three foun¬ 
tains, the place where St. Paul was beheaded, they show 
the identical spot where the milk spouted forth from his 
apostolical arteries, and where, moreover, his head, after 
it had done preaching, took three jumps (to the honour ol 
the holy Trinity), and at each spot on which it jumped 
there instantly struck up a spring of living water, which 
retains at this day a plain and distinct taste of milk. Of 
all which facts, Baronius, Mabillon, and all the gravest 
authors of the Roman Catholic communion, give us the 
most credible and unquestionable assurance.} 

It would be an injustice, however, to father such mira¬ 
culous accounts exclusively on the writers of the Roman 
Catholic communion. We should not have even a single 
credible witness left to ascertain to us, that Christianity, 
in any shape or guise, continued in existence, or what 
it was, after it passed from the first toother hands,.should 
we consider the most egregious, atrocious, impudent lying 
as a disparagement to the credibility of Christian historians. 
It is no fanatic or enthusiast who is himself deceived, hut 
it is the calm, serious, calculating, most sincere, most 
accomplished, most veracious St. Augustin, who, in his 
33rd Sermon addressed to his reverend brethren, fear¬ 
lessly stakes his eternal salvation to the fact, which 
was as true as the Gospel, and for which there can 
be no doubt that he would as cheerfully as for the 
Gospel have suffered himself to be burned at the stake; 
that “ he himself being at that time bishop of Hippo 
Regius, had preached the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ to a whole nation of men and women that 
had no heads, but had their eyes in their bosoms; and in 
countries still more southerly, he preached to a nation 
among whom each individual had but one eye, and that 
situate in the middle of the forehead.^ While the no less 
credible Eusebius assures us, that on some occasions the 
bodies of the martyrs who had been devoured by wild 

* Flexis genibus, crucisque se signo muniens, cervicem prsebuit percussori • 
E cujusgladio, desecto capite, pro sanguine lac cucurrit ita ut percussoris dextram 
lactea unda perfunderet.— Apostol. Hist. lib. 2, p. 455. 

t See the statement to the sense, not the letter, in Dr. Middleton’s Letter from 
Uome„, p. 127. 

t Syntagma, p. 33 


272 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


beasts, upon the beasts being strangled, were found alive 
in their stomachs, even after having been completely 
digested.* 

Such statements, and ecclesiastical history is ittle bet¬ 
ter than a continued series of such, must surely convince 
every impartial inquirer, that the professors and preach¬ 
ers of Christianity, however a few honourable exceptions 
may have from time to time arisen, (as never was the so¬ 
ciety so bad, but that there must have been some among 
them not quite so bad as the worst), yet generally they 
were men who had no respect for truth, and no governing 
principle but a wicked esprit du corps , which determined 
them a toule outrance to impose on the credulity and igno¬ 
rance of the vulgar. 

That there is no difference between the Popish legends and the 
canonical Acts of the Apostles. 

The great difficulty is to draw the line between eccle¬ 
siastical history, and that which is truly apostolical; since 
it is hardly possible to fix on a legend so egregiously ab¬ 
surd, or a pretended miracle so monstrously ridiculous, 
in all that is absurd and ridiculous in Popish supersti¬ 
tion, but that its original type and first draft shall be 
to be found even in our own canonical and inspired 
Scriptures. 

After having laughed at St. Dunstan’s taking the Devil 
by the nose with a pair of red-hot tongs, in the golden 
legend, we are made to laugh on the other side of the 
mouth, or rather to tremble and adore, at the account, 
which nobody may doubt, of the fate of the seven sons of 
Sceva the Jew, in conflict with whom it was the Devil 
who proved victorious, and overcame them, and prevailed 
against them , so that they fled out of that house naked and toounded. 
Nor was the wonder-working name of “ Jesus, whom Paul 
preached,” sufficient to lay him; for, said the Devil, u Jesus 
I know, and Paul I know, but who are youV' > —Acts xix. 15. 

In like manner we Protestants, who despise all the sto¬ 
ries of miracles wrought by old rags, rotten bones, rusty 
nails, pocket-handkerchiefs, and aprons; that stand on no 
better authority than those monkish tales which our church 
has rejected, do bow with implicit faith to the miracles 
wrought by relics, which stand on the authority of those 
monkish tales which our church has not rejected; and it 
is to be believed, or at least not laughed at, under peril of 

* Lardner, vol. 4, p. 91 


CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES. 


273 


being sent to jail, that “ God wrought special miracles by the 
hand of Paul , so that from his body were brought unto the sick , 
handkerchiefs or aprons , and the diseases departed from them , and 
the evil spirits went out from them .”—Acts xix. 12. 

Here again is an egregious atopism.—How could St. 
Paul have aprons 9 or what use could Jews have of pocket 
handkerchiefs 9 Are we to forget that their sleeves and 
beards answered all the purpose, and saved washing ? 

We are at full liberty to have our mirth out at the story 
of St. Bartholomew possessing the faculty of becoming in¬ 
visible, and appearing and disappearing, as the cause of 
the gospel required, because that story rests only on the 
authority of the apostolic history of Abdias, a few pages 
further on than our canonical Acts of the Apostles has 
continued to make extracts from it ; but had it been intro¬ 
duced, as many arguments would have been adduced by 
our clergy to justify it, and as great peril of incarcera¬ 
tion incurred for snuffing at it, as at precisely the parallel 
story of St. Philip , who, in the canonical part of the book, 
is described as riding in the air, as picked up by the Spirit 
of the Lord in one place, and popped down in another 
(Acts 8 . 40). 

That no such persons as the Twelve Apostles ever existed. 

Thus the glorious company of the apostles , having glistened 
upon the world’s darkness like the sparks on a burnt rag, 
go out in like manner, leaving no more vestige of their 
existence, or of any effect of the miraculous powers with 
which they are believed to have been invested, than “the 
bird’s wing on the air, or the pathway of the keel through 
the wave.” No credible history whatever recognizes the 
existence of any one of them, or of any one result of all 
their stupendous labours and sufferings. The very criterion 
miracle itself, the most critical and important of all, that 
which if not true, leaves not so much as a possibility 
that any other should be so—the miracle of the gift oj 
tongues , not only has no one particle of concurrent evi¬ 
dence in all the world to make it credible, or even to 
make it conceivable, but absolutely breaks down and gives 
way, and is attended by positive demonstration of its 
falsehood, even in the immediate context of the legend 
which relates it. In sequence, on the passage which in¬ 
structs us that the assembled apostles were by the 
immediate power of God “ enabled to speak all the lan¬ 
guages of the earth in a moment of time,” and thus 


274 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 


unquestionably must have been rendered the most con 
summate and accomplished scholars that ever lived, we 
find Peter and John, the most distinguished of them, in 
the next scene, brought before the magistrates as notorious 
tricksters and cheats, and then and there availing them¬ 
selves of their supernatural gift of eloquence to no better 
effect, than to show that they were unlearned and ignorant 
men , (Acts iv. 13). 

The Arabian Nights Entertainments are more consistent. 
Consult the records of history, and what has become of 
these most extraordinary personages that ever existed, 
if indeed they ever existed? Not only their names 
are no where to be found, but the mighty works which 
should have perpetuated their names have no records. 
The churches which they are said to have founded, have 
all shared the fate of Alladin’s castle: the nations which 
they converted, have all relapsed into idolatry ; the light 
that was to lighten the Gentiles, only served to introduce 
the dark ages. Not only chronology and history withhold 
all countenance from the fabulous adventures of these 
fabulous personages, but geography itself recoils from the 
story ; not only were there no such persons as themselves, 
and no such persons as the kings and potentates whom 
they are said to have baptized and converted, but no such 
countries, cities, and nations as many of those in which 
they are said to have achieved their mightiest works. Like 
their divine Master, their kingdoms were not of this world. 
Where, for instance, was tiie country of the Magicians, 
of the Amazons, ol the Acephaii, the Monoculi, and the 
Salamanders ? Where but in tne same latitude with Brob- 
dignag and Lilliputa 5 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 

From the self-evident absurdity of all arguments drawn 
from miracles, which could be of avail only to those who 
witnessed them, and even to them of no further avail than 
to make them stare and wonder, but to leave them in as 
great ignorance as ever as to the what then , or what infer¬ 
ence, from an unaccountable fact to the truth or falsehood 
of an unaccountable doctrine, divines have been driven 
jpon the dernier resort of a desperate attempt to connect 




THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 275 

Christianity with a species of historical evidence arising 
from the argument of martyrdom . 

Accordingly, in the latest or at least.most popular treatise 
on the Evidences of Christianity which is now read in our 
universities, and generally appealed to as exhibiting the 
whole stress of the cause set in the best light, and shown 
to the utmost advantage, the whole burthen is laid on 
these two propositions :— 

First , “ That there is satisfactory evidence that many 
professing to be original witnesses of the Christian mira¬ 
cles, passed their lives in labours, dangers, and sufferings, 
voluntarily undergone in attestation of the accounts which 
they delivered, and solely in consequence of their belief 
of those accounts ; and that they also submitted, from the 
same motives, to new rules of conduct.” 

Second Proposition. “ That there is not satisfactory ev¬ 
idence that persons pretending to be original witnesses of 
any other similar miracles, have acted in the same manner 
in attestation of the accounts which they delivered, and 
solely in consequence of their belief of the truth of those 
accounts.”* 

Such are the specific propositions on which the whole 
fabric of the evidences of Christianity is raised, by that 
great master “ of thoughts that are just , and words that are 
beautiful ,”f whose name and authority were urged to 
justify the cutting off from society of one whose only of¬ 
fence was, that he availed himself of thoughts quite as 
just, in words as beautiful, leading only to diametrically 
opposite conclusions. 

Not to quarrel with the logic of these propositions, nor 
waste a moment’s indignation on the apparent insult 
offered to the acutest sensibilities of our nature, in thus 
couching conditions involving the eternal happiness or 
misery of man, in terms whose laxity of purport and in¬ 
definiteness of sense could intend no other drift than to 
evade conclusion, to disappoint solicitude, and to defeat 
examination; 

We apply at once to this whole argument of martyrdom 3 
these two grand conflicting propositions :— 

First , That sufferings undergone by the first preachers 
of Christianity is not the kind of evidence which we have 


* Paley’s Evidences of Christianity. 

t Words of Sir James Scarlett, sold to the prosecution of the Author in tho 
Court of King’s Bench, October 24, JS27. 


276 THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 

a right to expect that the good and gracious Father of man¬ 
kind should have given to a revelation which he was 
pleased to make ; 

Second , That it is absolutely net true, that the first preach¬ 
ers of Christianity did undergo any sufferings whatever in 
attestation of the accounts which they delivered. 

In still briefer proposition, the argument of martyrdom 
is not true ; and it would be good for nothing, if it were 
true. 

I. That Martyrdom is not the kind of evidence which we have $ 
right to expect. 

Against this first and primordial consideration of the 
business, a most preposterous and absurd war of nonsense 
and insolence is generally raised, to shelter and protect 
the desolation of the Christian argument. “ May, but 
O man , who art thou , that repliest against God ? What 
right have we to demand that Goa should give to his 
revelation just such evidence as we please to think 
necessary ?” 

To all which sort of language, though disgracing the 
style of authors who have acquired the fame of critics, 
scholars, and rational men, on all other subjects, we have 
only to bid observance be awake to the petitio principii , or 
entire begging of the question, which it involves. For they 
who write or preach on the evidences of the Christian reli¬ 
gion, must at least be supposed to hold out that they have 
some reasons or arguments to offer, which shall induce men 
who before did not believe, to become believers ; or those 
who before did in some degree believe, to believe with a 
stronger degree of conviction than they otherwise would : 
(which is a branch of the same general purpose) : and to 
acquit themselves in the discharge of that duty which the 
apostolic injunction hath bound upon them— i. e. to be 
ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh them 
a reason of the hope that is in them, with meekness and fear.* 
But such an answer is a veto upon all reason, and a com¬ 
plete admission of entire inability to give one ; and, in¬ 
stead of indicating any disposition of meekness, is little 
short of an assumption to themselves of the most un¬ 
qualified infallibility ; and brings their logic into a circle , 
which all rational men know at once to be downright 
idiotcy. For not only must they maintain that the evidence 


* 1 Pet. iii. 15. 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 


277 


was therefore proper, because it is such as God has been 
pleased to give, but that God has been pleased to give it, 
because it was proper : thus assuming to themselves that 
very right which they impugn, and exercising that prero¬ 
gative which they hold to be the highest pitch of impiety 
when claimed by other persons, or exercised to other ends 
than their’s. 

And this, their argumentum in circulo , is spun upon the 
pivot of another sophism in logic, the assumptio ex post facto. 
The propriety and sufficiency of their evidence would 
never have been dreamed of, if it had not been that such, 
and none other, was the best evidence they had to pre¬ 
tend ; and any other evidence whatever that they had 
chosen to pretend, they could just as well have pretended 
to be the proper and sufficient evidence as this. 

The impropriety of the argument as it respects the character of 

God. 

A moment’s conscientious reflection must surely lead 
any rational mind to a conviction how essentially immoral 
and unfit, and how egregiously irrelevant and inconclusive 
any such sort of evidence to a divine revelation must be, 
and make the very most of it, and concede the very 
utmost in its favour. Is it in the compass of invention to 
conceive any thing more unworthy of God ? more dis¬ 
paraging and subversive of all respectful and honourable 
apprehensions, which, whosoever believeth that there is 
a God at all, ought to entertain and cultivate in his mind ? 
Or was there ever in the world a conceivable worse ex¬ 
ample of injustice and cruelty, than that involved in the 
supposition of the Almighty Governor of the universe 
choosing out his best and most accepted servants to send 
them on a message, the faithful delivery of which should 
bring on them the most horrible sufferings, and most cruel 
deaths ? What else is a Moloch ? or Belial ? What other 
notion can we have of a demon ? What dye of grimmer 
blackness can be added to that monster of your conceit, 
whom you have described as dealing thus with those who 
love and serve him best : whom you pourtray as a tyrant, 
whose commissions are fatal to those who hold them, who 
pays his best servants with bloody wages, whose embas 
sies of peace are borne on vulture’s wings, whose chari¬ 
ties are administered in works of destruction, whose ten¬ 
der mercies are cruel ? 

And what relevancy, pray, after all, between the suffer- 

25 ' 


278 tHE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 

* 

ings which any set of persons may voluntarily undergo, 
and the truth or falsehood of any doctrines they may have 
maintained ? What consequence or connection between 
the endurance of punishment, and the utterance of truth, 
unless we have some means of being assured that it was 
impossible that any body should have been punished for 
uttering falsehood, and so outrage all notions of a moral 
government of the universe ? 

Do we, then, hold a revelation from God to be, in the 
nature of things, absolutely impossible ?—We answer, no ! 
Then, by what other possible means than those of mira¬ 
cles, and the sufferings of those who were the immediate 
channels of the divine communication, can we suppose 
the revelation to be conveyed ? “ They shall no more teach 

every man his neighbour , saying , Know the Lord ! for they shall 
all know him , from the least to the greatest ; for the whole earth 
shall be filed with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord , as the 
waters cover the sea.”—Isaiah. 

A person who had sincerely persuaded himself of the 
divine authority of whatever purports to have been posi¬ 
tively commanded or forbidden by Christ, would never be 
seen to darken the doors of either church or chapel.— 
“ Thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are : But thou, when thou 
prayest , enter into thy closet , and when thou hast shut thy door , 
pray to thy father ivhich is in secret What is the act, then, 
of attending public worship, but an act of public hypocrisy ? 
And whose authority is it, that they respect, who* fly in the 
teeth of so positive an inhibition ? 

But this would spoil religion as a trade ; and therefore, 
like Christ’s professed indifference to the observation of 
the Sabbath,* and his most solemn forbiddance of oath¬ 
taking,f it becomes a dead letter, which every body reads, 
but nobody respects. 

The impropriety of the argument as it respects the character of 
Man. 

With respect to the character of man, knowing and 
feeling as we do, in every sentiment of our minds, in every 
impression on our senses, our liability both to false im¬ 
pressions and erroneous ideas, and that these are compe¬ 
tent to urge men to act and suffer to the same extent as 
the most accurate impressions, and the most mathematical 
conclusions ; that is, that men are, and have been in all 

* Matt. xii. 8. f- Matt v 34 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTiRDOM. 279 

a 

ages, as ready to become martyrs for falsehood as for 
truth : We ask, 

How could sufferings, either voluntarily or involuntarily 
incurred, supply any sort of attestation to a doctrine ? 

If such sufferings be voluntarily incurred, when they 
might as well have been avoided, what is to excuse such 
wanton and useless suicide ? 

Surely the act of suicide is precisely the same, if a man 
rushes on a drawn sword, which he sees held in another 
man’s hand, as if he held the sword himself. —And, 

What right can any man have to expect that other men 
should believe him affirming to a fact upon the testimony 
of his senses, when they see him setting the testimony of 
his senses at defiance, and not himself subscribing to the 
argument of pain and smarting ? 

If such sufferings were involuntary, where could be the 
merit, or. what proof of the sincerity of the sufferers could 
they involve ? 

if such sufferings, in the natural course of things , were in¬ 
evitable upon the conduct which the first preachers of the 
Gospel adopted, and God be believed to be the author and 
director of the natural course of things , what stronger prool 
could God himself be conceived to give us that that con¬ 
duct was wrong, and that that religion, which could only 
be propagated by such conduct, was false ? 

Nor should we overlook the palpable injustice of the 
argument built upon the long ago , and probably greatly ex¬ 
aggerated sufferings, of the martyrs of Christianity, but 
which takes no account of the sincerity and self-denial of 
its conscientious victims ; that sympathizes, like Nero, in 
dramatic griefs, but forgets its own Oakham; weeps for 
the scratched finger of any of its own faction, but is at 
ease in an aceldama of persecuted infidels. 

Extraordinary fortitude, exhibited under great and cruel 
sufferings, could only be considered as involving an argu¬ 
ment for the truth of the Christian religion, on the suppo¬ 
sition that such fortitude was properly and strictly miracu¬ 
lous ; a supposition directly outraging all notions of either 
goodness or justice in the Deity who should choose to 
work a sanguinary and horrible miracle, when he might 
at once have better accomplished the same effect by better 
means.—And, 

Lastly, in the case of Judas Iscariot, as given in the 
Acts of the Apostles, we have the judgment ot the whole 


280 THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 

apostolic college on the side of our proposition ;* the hor¬ 
rible and cruel death of the traitor being there specifically 
adduced as an argument of the divine displeasure against 
him ; thereby demonstrating that, in the judgment of the 
apostles themselves, the coming to a bad end should be 
read to the diametrically opposite inference of that ot 
martyrdom ; ’ that we should rather conclude, that u so bad 
a death argues a monstrous life and that the good and 
gracious Father of mankind would never have suffered 
those who had sought to please him, or preached a doc¬ 
trine that, was agreeable to him, to have had any occasion 
to suffer for it. 

II. That the argument of martyrdom is absolutely not true , 

Is demonstrable, distinctively, on these four grounds : 
1st, That it is contrary to nature ; 2nd, That it is contrary 
to the general tenor of the New Testament itself ; 3d, That 
it is contrary to the evidence of history ; 4th, That it is 
positively denied by the very authorities on whose testi¬ 
mony alone it could be pretended. 

1st. It is contrary to nature. —Credulity and easiness of 
belief are the essential characteristics of man, and espe¬ 
cially of ignorant man. 

There was nothing, and could have been nothing in the 
lives and conduct of such men as we must suppose the 
first preachers of Christianity to have been, but must have 
been calculated to win all men’s hearts, and have made 
them the great objects of favour, admiration, love, and 
confidence. It is as impossible but that they must have 
found friends, as it is impossible that Christianity could 
have been propagated, if they had not done so. We 
might as well believe in St. Augustin’s men and women 
without heads, as imagine that there were ever men, or 
whole races of men, without the natural affections and 
rational faculties that constitute men ; or that, being such, 
they should be insensible of the virtue, goodness, wisdom, 
and miraculous gifts of the first preachers of the purest and 
best doctrine that ever was in the world, or have suffered 
such men to undergo any sort of wrong or oppression 
whatever. It outrages probability ; it is unnatural ; it is 
impossible ; it is inconceivable ; it is the sheer end of all 
discourse of reason. 

* Of course making the assumption, that there were such persons, and that such 
were their acts and counsels, argumenti gratia. 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 


281 


2nd. It is contrary to the general tenor of the New Testament 
itself ; in that the Gospel of St. Luke is addressed to the 
most excellent Theophihis, a person of rank and distinc¬ 
tion sufficient to prove that the Gospel, at the time of 
writing it, enjoyed the patronage of the great : in that 
Christ, by express precept, instructs his disciples, that ij 
they should be persecuted in one city they should fly to another , 
(Matt. x. 23) ; a precept implying, not only that persecu¬ 
tion would never be general ; but authorizing and com¬ 
manding them not to suffer themselves to be persecuted, 
but to get out of the way of it, even by having recourse to 
a lie or a shirk , when occasion should call for it: which is 
necessarily included in every act of absconding or flight. 

Jesus Christ, by palpable example, shows that he would 
rather have seen the whole world perish than he would 
have been crucified, if he could by any means, fair or foul, 
have made his escape ; and submitted at last to drink the 
cup only because it was impossible that it should pass from 
him. 

The Apostle Peter asks of the Christians to whom his 
epistles are addressed, u Who is he that will harm you , if ye 
be followers of that which is good ?”* a sort of challenge which 
could not have been given if the Christians ever had been 
called to suffer on account of their religion merely, or 
were in any state of liability to suffer on that account. 

The Apostle Paul, in the last authentic account of him, 
is described as existing in a state of perfect security and 
independence in Rome, under the government of Nero 
himself, and is so far from charging even that worst of all 
the Roman emperors with the spirit of religious intoler¬ 
ance, that he speaks of him as the minister of God , not a ter¬ 
ror to good works , but to the evil ;f a sort of language and 
doctrine that leaves us no alternative, but that either the 
whole of ecclesiastical history is a tissue of falsehood, or 
the New Testament is no better. 

3d. It is contrary to the evidence of history. —Such aban¬ 
doned and unprincipled wretches as the state justly pun¬ 
ished for their crimes, would gladly be thought martyrs 
rather than felons; the^would accuse their judges—as 
what felons would not—of partiality, and of condemning 
them for being Christians, especially as there were never 
wanting a number of persons sufficiently stupid and 
wicked to think that Christianity itself gave them a right 


* 1 Peter iii. 13. 

25* 


t Romans xiii. 3 


282 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM 


and privilege to commit crimes with impunity (a notion that 
wants not countenance in the New Testament itself 4 ) ; 
and these persons, when suffering* the due rewards of their 
deeds, would not fail to claim and receive the credit of 
being martyrs. The offensive conduct of such persons 
could not "have failed to have occasioned innumerable 
mistakes, in which the innocent may have suffered with 
the guilty, and the Pagans may, upon the stimulus of in¬ 
tense provocation, have taken sometimes severe and ex¬ 
cessive revenge on the insults put on their religion. A 
Jeffries, a Bonnor, or a city of London Recorder ,f might 
occasionally have sat on a Pagan bench, but it does not 
appear that the Roman senate or magistracy, generally, 
ever lent countenance to any public measures of religious 
persecution. The code of Roman laws contains not a 
vestige of any statute that was ever enacted against 
Christians. Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, the Antonines, and 
Julian, were men of the nicest sense of honour, and of so 
strict and passionate an attachment to the principle of 
justice , that it is rather conceivable that they would have 
suffered martyrdom themselves than have put it into the 
power of their worst enemy to attaint the purity of their 
administration. u If a man were called to fix the period 
in the history of the world during which the condition of 
the human race was most happy and prosperous, he would 
without hesitation name that which elapsed from the death 
of Domitian to the accession of Commodus.”J 

That period embraces eighty-four years, from the 96th 
of the Christian era to the 180th, during which reigned 
Nerva, Trajan, Adrian, Antoninus Pius, and Antoninus 
the Philosopher. Nor can any age or any country in the 
world boast of a succession of reigning princes of equal 
virtue, wisdom, and humanity. The best of our most reli¬ 
gious and gracious kings that ever swayed the sceptre over 
a Christian people, was never worthy to be compared with 
any one of these successively excellent sovereigns. “The 
edicts of Adrian and Antoninus Pius expressly declared, 
that the voice of the multitude should never be admitted 
as legal evidence to convict or to punish the unfortunate 

* “ The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.” (1 John i. 7.)—“ If out 
unrighteousness commendeth the righteousnsss of God.” (Rom. iii. 5.) 

t The little barbarian, in calling for judgment on the author, pleaded for the 
expediency of violent and corporeal punishment, on Feb. 7, 1828. 

t Gibbon’s Dec ine and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1, p 126. 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 283 

persons who had embraced the enthusiasm of the Chris¬ 
tians.”* 

What extraordinary motive, what new and never before 
heard of spring- of human action can have been brought 
mto play, to set men all at once persecuting the very best 
of religions, who had never persecuted any other that ever 
was in the world ; and to induce those unquestionably wise 
and good men, whose justice and generosity had never 
been impeached till then, just then to lay aside their jus¬ 
tice and generosity, to be wise and good men no longer, 
but to be converted into persecutors, and to become 
enemies to the death of the meek and innocent follow¬ 
ers of an offenceless faith ? Surely here is problem with¬ 
out solution, effect without cause, and improbability 
without evidence. To believe that the first preachers of 
Christianity, or their immediate successors, were the vic¬ 
tims of persecution, we must shut out the evidence of all 
other histories but such as they themselves put into our 
hands, and determine to believe not only without evidence, 
but in direct contradiction to it. Nor even will such a 
degree of obstinacy make sure work for our persuasion 
that the Christians generally testified their sincerity by 
martyrdom, since, 

4th. It is positively denied by the very authorities on whose testi¬ 
mony alone it could be pretended. — u In the time of Tertullian 
and Clemens of Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom, with 
the universal consent of the Christian community, was 
confined to the singularly distinguished personages St. Pe¬ 
ter, St. Paul, and St. James.”f 

St. James is said to have been murdered by St. Paul, 
and therefore his death ought not to be laid to the charge 
of Pagan persecution. 

The martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul is contrary to 
the indications of the New Testament itself, and rests on 
no better credit than that of the Apostolic history of A'b- 
dias, which the church has rejected as apocryphal. 

“ Dionysius, the friend of Origen, reckons in the im¬ 
mense city of Alexandria, and under the rigorous persecu¬ 
tion of Decius, only ten men, and seven women, who suf¬ 
fered for the profession of the Christian name and Origen 
himself declares, in the most express terms, that the num¬ 
ber of martyrs was very inconsiderable. 


* Gibbon, vol. 2, p. 422. 


1 Ibid, vol. 2, p. 427 


284 THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 

Specimens of Martyr ology. 

The Roman legends tell of ten thousand Christian sol¬ 
diers who were crucified in one day by order of the Em¬ 
peror Trajan, or Adrian, on Mount Ararat; on the strength 
of no better authority than which, our church of England 
daily repeats the palpable and egregious falsehood, “ The 
noble army of martyrs praise thee /” The fact itself is of such 
a nature, even in the judgment of sincere Christians, as to 
be pronounced not only not true, but utterly, physically 
and morally, impossible to be true. 

And of this character, and no better, are all the stories 
of martyrdom endured by Polycarp, Ignatius, and others, 
under the humane and just Trajan, and the martyrdoms of 
Sanctus, Maturus, Pothinus, Ponticus, Attains, Blandina, 
and all the martyrs of Vienna and Lyons, who, if we will 
believe Eusebius, Addison, and, I blush to say, Lardner , 
suffered under the administration of Antoninus Verus, 
were fryed to death in red hot iron chairs, and suffered 
such torments, as to be sure it was physically impossible 
that they should have suffered. 

“ The holy martyrs,” says the veracious historian, “ un¬ 
derwent such torments as are above all description.” How¬ 
ever he makes an attempt to describe them, and tells us, 
that “the tormenters who were employed to torment (the 
young lady) Blandina, tortured her all manner of ways 
from morning till evening, relieving each other by turns, 
till they themselves became feeble and faint with exertion, 
and acknowledged themselves overcome, there being 
nothing more that they could do to her; and they won¬ 
dered that she had any breath left, her whole body having 
been tortured and mangled ; and they declared, that any 
one torture used by them was sufficient to deprive her of 
life, much more so many and so great. But that blessed 
woman renewed her strength, and it was a refreshment and 
ease to her ; and though her whole body was tome to pieces , 
yet by pronouncing the words, ‘lama Christian, neither 
have we committed any evil,’ she was immediately recreated 
and refreshed, and felt no pain. So after the executioners 
bad given up the business of attempting to kill her, which 
they were by no means able to accomplish, she was hung 
up in chains, dangling within the reach of wild beasts. 
And this, no doubt, was so done by the ordinance of God, 
that she, hanging in the form of a cross, might, by her in¬ 
cessant prayers, procure cheerfulness of mind to the suf- 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 


285 


fering saints. After she had hung thus a long while, and 
the wild beasts had not ventured to touch her, she was 
taken down and cast into prison, to be reserved for further 
torments ; where she still continued preaching and en¬ 
couraging her fellow Christians, rejoicing and triumphing 
m all that she had gone through, as if she had only been 
invited to a wedding dinner : whereupon they broiled her 
whole body in a frying-pan ; which she not at all regarding, 
they took her out and wrapt her in a net, and cast her into 
a mad bull, who foamed and tossed her upon his horns to 
and fro, yet had she no feeling of pain in all these things, 
her mind being wholly engaged in conference with Christ. 
So that at length, when no more could be done unto her, 
she was beheaded , the Pagans themselves confessing, that 
never any woman was heard of among them to have suf¬ 
fered so many and so great torments.”* 

As for Sanctus, deacon of Vienna, when there was 
nothing more that they could do to him, “ they clapped red 
hot plates of brass upon the most tender parts of his body, 
which fryed, seared, and scorched him all over, yet re¬ 
mained he immoveable and undaunted, being cooled, 
refreshed, and strengthened with heavenly dews of the 
water of life gushing from the womb of Christ ;f his body 
being all over wound and scar, contracted and drawn to¬ 
gether, having lost the external shape of a man. In whom 
Christ suffering, performed great wonders : for when those 
wicked men began again to torture him, supposing that if 
they should make use of the same tortures, while his body 
was swollen, and his wounds inliamed, they should master 
him, or that he would die, not only no such thing happen¬ 
ed, but, beyond all men’s expectation, by those latter tor¬ 
ments his body got relief from all the disease it had con¬ 
tracted by what he had before suffered ; he recovered the 
use of his limbs which he had lost ; he got rid of his pains ; 
so that, through the grace of Christ, the second torture 
that they put him to, proved to be a remedy and a cure to 
him, instead of a punishment. 

* Quoted from Eusebius by Lardner, vol. 4, p. 83, and revised from the origi 
nal by the author. Notwithstanding the gravity of Lardner and Addison on this 
subject, I mightily suspect that this Lady Blandina was nothing else than a Shrovc- 
Tuesday pancake ;—a sort of Sir John Barleycorn. She would not be tbe first 
divine sufferer who had been made of a bit of dough.—Compare with pp. 58, and 
238, of this Diegesis. 

t The womb of Christ: so Dr. Hanmer renders it. It is not the only pas., 
sage w hich serves to render the sex of Christ equivocal. 

X I ardner’s translation, as far as it is followed, vol. 4, p. 87 , the rest original, 
from Euseb. Eccl. Hist, libt 6, c. 1. 


286 


THE ARGUMENT OF MARTYRDOM. 


Such is a fair specimen of ecclesiastical history, and 
such the trash which must be held to be credible, if the 
argument of martyrdom be so. 

Against such evidence, which may well be considered as 
setting comment at defiance, we every now and then 
stumble on admissions of the Christian Fathers themselves 
that entirely exhonerate the Pagan magistracy, not only 
from such charges as might be inferred from any suppose- 
able ground or outline of original truth in such narrations 
as these, but which clear them from all suspicion of ever 
having countenanced persecution on the score of religion, 
in any case whatever. Tertullian challenges the Roman 
Senate to name him one of their emperors, on whose reign 
they themselves had not set a stigma, who had ever per¬ 
secuted the Christians ; and the modest and rational Me- 
lito, bishop of Sardis, in applying for redress (which was 
instantly granted) to Marcus Antoninus from some griev¬ 
ances which religious people at that time had cause to 
complain of, expressly states, that a similar cause of com¬ 
plaint had never before existed. 

Even if the evidence of the reality of martyrdoms in¬ 
curred for the conscientious maintenance of the Christian 
faith in former times, were a thousand-fold more than it 
is (which it could easily be), or more than is pretended 
(which it could not easily be) it surely could not avail 
against the evidence of our own absolute experience, that 
the merit of this argument in our times, stands altogether 
and exclusively on the side of infidelity. None are the 
persecutors but Christians themselves. None are the vic¬ 
tims of persecution, or liable to be so, but the conscien¬ 
tious and honourable opponents of Christianity. It is the 
deniers and impugners of revelation, who alone give evi¬ 
dence of sincere conviction, in the voluntary abdication 
of station and affluence, and in the endurance of the most 
cruel and trying sufferings. It is our own times that have 
witnessed the virtue that has preferred the cell of solitary 
confinement, and the fate of felons and culprits with an 
approving conscience, to the professorial chair, the rec¬ 
tor’s mansion, or the prebendal stall, that might have been 
held as the wages of iniquity. 

They are Christians, and of Christians the loudest and 
most ostentatious professors of Christianity, who alone 
discover the dispositions and tempers of persecutors, and 
are, of all persecutors, the most implacable, most cruel, 
most inexorable.—While those who are most conspicuous 


TIIE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


287 


in their professions of deprecating persecution, and who 
“ lament that ever the arm of the law should be called in 
to vindicate their cause,” deprecate and lament it avow¬ 
edly on no other ground than that of their fear that it 
should render its victims objects of a pity and sympathy 
of which themselves are incapable.—In their own right 
charitable phrase, they fear lest persecution should u gonear 
to place the martyr's crown on the loathsome hydra of infidelity 
that is, they are not sorry for the sufferer, but they are 
sorry that any body else should be sorry for him. They 
would not spare the poor victim a single pang, nor take a 
knot out of the lash that is laid on him, nor whisper a 
comfortable syllable in his ear, nor reach a cup of water to 
his lip, nor wipe away a tear from liis cheek, nor soothe 
his fainting spirit with a sigh ;—but they are sorry for the 
disturbance of the welkin—they begrudge him the pity 
and compassion due to his sorrows. If some way could be 
invented to do the business without a noise, it seems, for 
all their charity, it might be very well done. 

One might fill libraries with works of Christian divines 
in protest against the principle of persecution—one act of 
any Christian divine whatever, in accordance with the 
sincerity of such a protest, would be one more than the 
world has ever heard of. Never did the sun see a Chris¬ 
tian hand drawn out of the bosom to prevent persecution, 
to resist its violence, to say to it what doest thou ? or to re¬ 
dress the wrong that it had done.—Of what, then are such 
protests evidence—but of the foulest, the grossest hypocrisy ; 
—hypocrisy, than which imagination can conceive no 
greater.— James, ii. 15, 16. 

The demonstrations of Euclid, therefore, are not more 
mathematically complete than the ratiocinative certainty 
that the whole argument of martyrdom, upon which the 
most popular treatises on the evidences of the Christian 
religion are founded, is as false as God is true. 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 

The Apostolic Fathers , is the honourable distinction given 
to those orthodox professors of the Christian religion, who 
are believed to have lived arid written at some time within 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


283 

the first hundred years, so as to-stand within a conceivable 
probability of having seen or conversed with some or 
other of the twelve apostles, and to have received their 
doctrine thus immediately from the fountain heads. 

There are upwards of seventy claimants of this honour, 
exclusive of such as the pseudo Linus, and Abdias, bishop 
of Babylon, who pretends to have seen Christ himself, 
though no such person, no such bishop, and no such bish¬ 
opric ever existed. The majority of these are mer^ 
imaginary names of imaginary persons, whose various ac 
tions and sufferings arealtogether the creation of romance 
The historians of the first three centuries of Christianity 
have taken so great a licence in this way, as that no one 
alleged fact standing on their testimony can be said to 
have even a probable degree of evidence. The most can¬ 
did and learned even of Christian inquirers, have admitted, 
that antiquity is most deficient just exactly where it is 
most important; that there is absolutely nothing known 
of the church history in those times on which a rational 
man could place any reliance ; and that the epocha when 
Christian truth first dawned upon the world, is appropri¬ 
ately designated as the Age of Fable * 

The title of Apostolic Fathers, is given only to the five 
individuals, St. Barnabas, St. Clement, St. Hermas, St 
Ignatius, and St. Polycarp, of whom the three former have 
honourable mention in the New Testament; the two lat¬ 
ter are believed to have suffered martyrdom, and each is 
supposed to be the author of the respective epistles which 
have come down to us under their names, which, notwith¬ 
standing, the church has seen reason to take for no better 
than they are —supernumerary forgeries. Had they, how¬ 
ever, been retained in the canon of sacred Scripture, we 
should have had folios of evidence in demonstration of their 
authenticity ; and withal the demonstration (which all re¬ 
ligionists appeal to whenever they can) of penalties, fines, 
imprisonment, and infinite persecution, on all who had un¬ 
derstanding and integrity to treat them with the contempt 
which every thing of the kind merits. 

st. barnabas— Bishop of Milan , 

Was a Levite of the country of Cyprus, and one of those 
Christians who, having land, sold it, and brought the 

* Rerum gestarum fides exinde graviter laboraverit nec orbis terrarum tantum 
sed et Dei ecclesia de temporibus suis mysticis merito queratur.— Dr. Fell Bishop 
of Oxford. 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


289 


money and laid it at the apostles’ feet; whereupon they 
changed his name from Joses into Barnabas, which signi¬ 
fies the son of consolation. So that he literally bought his apos- 
tleship ; and having gratified the avarice of the holy con¬ 
clave, their historian bears him the honourable testimony, 
that he was a good man , full of the Holy Ghost and of faith. 
(Acts xi. 24.) St. Clement of Alexandria has often quoted 
the epistle that goes under his name as the composition of 
an inspired apostle. In the catalogue of Dorotheus it is 
said, u Barnabas was a minister of the word together with 
Paul ; he preached Christ first at Rome, and was after¬ 
wards made bishop of Milan and in the translator’s pre¬ 
face to that catalogue, it is asserted, on I know not what 
authority, that Barnabas had a rope tied about his neck, 
and was therewith pulled to the stake and burned. We 
have no account of any miracles which Barnabas wrought 
in his lifetime, which seems rather hard dealing with him 
on the part of the apostolic firm, since he had paid a very 
handsome consideration to be admitted into full partner¬ 
ship. The amende honourhble was made to his relics in af¬ 
ter ages ; they became wonderfully efficacious in healing 
all manner of diseases. His dead body had the distin¬ 
guished honour of giving a certificate to the genuineness 
of the gospel of St. Matthew, which was found lying upon 
his breast, written in his own hand, when his body was 
dug up in the island of Cyprus, so late as the year of our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 489 ;* so rapidly was the 
Christian faith, and consequently the efficacy of the relics 
of the saints, extending. 

“ Any one who reads the Epistle of Barnabas with but a 
small degree of attention,” says Dr. Lardner, “ will per¬ 
ceive in it many Pauline phrases and reasonings. To give 
the character of the author of it, in one word, he resem¬ 
bles St. Paul, as his fellow labourer, without copying him.” 

Paley quotes only the single passage from the apocry¬ 
phal epistle, which, he says, is probably genuine, ascribed 
to the apostle Barnabas, containing the words, “ Finally 
teaching the people of Israel, and doing many \yonders 
and signs among them; he (Christ) preached to them, and 
showed the exceeding great love which he bare towards 
them.”f 

* Sigcbertum Gemblacensem ad a. c. 489, itemque alios legassub Zenonis im- 
perio in insula Cypro repertum S. Barnabae corpus, et super pectore ejus, Evangei- 
ium S. Matthaei itiioyijayov tov BaQvapu. — Fabricii, tom. 1, p. 341 

t Paley’s Evid. vol. 1, p. 119. 

26 


290 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


To so clear and distinct a testimony to Christ and his 
miracles, I subjoin an equally sublime specimen of this 
apostle’s inspired reasoning, from Archbishop Wake’s 
translation :— 

“ Understand therefore, my children, these things more 
fully, that Abraham, who was the first that brought m 
circumcision, looking forward in the spirit to Jesus cruci¬ 
fied, received the mystery of three letters; for the Scripture 
says, that Abraham circumcised three hundred and eigh¬ 
teen men of his house. But what, therefore, was the mys¬ 
tery that was made known unto him ? Mark, first, the 
eighteen , and next the three hundred : for the numeral let¬ 
ters of ten and eight are I H, and these denote Jesus; and 
because the cross was that whereby we were to find grace, 
therefore he adds three hundred , the note of which is T ; 
wherefore, by two letters he signifies Jesus , and by the 
third, his cross. 

“ He who has put the engrafted gift of his doctrine 
within us, knows that I never taught to any one a more 
certain truth than this ; but I trust that ye are worthy 
of it.* 

“ Consider how God hath joined both the cross and the 
water together ; for thus he saith, blessed are they who 
put their trust in the cross, and descend into the water.f 

“ Jesus Christ is the heifer ; the wicked men who were 
to offer it, were those sinners who brought him to death. 

“ But why were there three young men appointed to 
sprinkle ? Why, to denote Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 
And why was the wool put upon a stick ? Why, but because 
the kingdom of Jesus Christ was founded upon wood.j: 
Blessed be our Lord, who has given us this wisdom, and 
a heart to understand his secrets.”§ 


SAINT CLEMENT, A. D. 96 . 

Bishop of Rome. 

St. Clement is with great confidence considered to be 
the individual honourably mentioned by St. Paul in those 
words, “ help those women which laboured with me An the 
Gospel , with Clement also , and with other my fellow labourers 
whose names are in the book of He is ordinarily 

* Barnabas’s Catholic Epist. in Wake, p 176. 

t Ibid. p. 180. jlbid. p. 174. 

§ Ibid. p. 169. | Phil. iv. 3. 



THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


291 


called Clemens Romanus , as having 1 been bishop of Rome, in 
the first century, to distinguish him from the no less illus¬ 
trious Clemens Alexandrinus , who was bishop of Alexandria, 
about a hundred years after. In the Chronography gener¬ 
ally attached to Evagrius’s Ecclesiastical History, his 
name is arranged as third in succession of the bishops of 
Rome from St. Peter, the order standing thus : St. Peter, 
St. Linus, St. Annicetus, or Anencletus, St. Clement.* 
There is but one ancient manuscript of his writings in ex¬ 
istence :f his first epistle only is held to be genuine. 
Measureless are the forgeries which Christian piety and 
conscientiousness had for ages put upon the world under 
his name. 

It is not without shrewd reason that the epistle which 
Paley quotes has been rejected from the place which it 
for many ages held in the volume of the New Testament 
itself. 

The passage, however, generally adduced from this 
epistle to prove the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
is too brief, and too evidently itself taken from some other 
authority, to admit of the fact being received on the evi¬ 
dence of this one single sentence, in one solitary manu¬ 
script of an author upon whom so many Christian forgeries 
have been committed. 

Clement evidently refers to some existing and generally 
received accounts of the martyrdom of St. Peter and St. 
Paul, of which accounts his Philippian converts must have 
been in possession ere they could be thus loosely and gen¬ 
erally called on to “ take them as examples.” 

Of the martyrdom of St. Paul, not the least account is 
traceable in the New Testament; but the very reverse of 
the probability of such a consummation of his history is 
indicated in the last allusion to him which the sacred text 
contains : u Jlnd Paul divelt two whole years in his own hired 
house , and received all that came in unto him , preaching the 
kingdom of God , and, teaching those things which concern the 
Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence , no man forbidding him” 
—Acts xxviii. 31. 

This, in Rome—this, under the reign of the tyrant 
Nero—this, when the tyrant Nero was not only reigning, 
but resident in Rome, unquestionably looks much askew 

* «* He had been first bishop of Sardis, and was afterwards translated to the 
more lucrative see cf Rome.”— Dorotheas. So early was the office of a bishop 
a good thing ! 

t Lardner, vol. 1, p. 290. 


292 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


on the probability of those horrible stories of peaceably 
and quietly conducted Christians being put to such horri¬ 
ble torments, as the interest of those who would harrow 
up our feelings with those stories, requires us to believe. 

Of the martyrdun of St. Peter, in like manner, the only 
authentic record in the case deposeth not a syllable. The 
last mention of his name in the canonical Acts of the 
Apostles informs us, that after having successfully set the 
power of the magistrates at defiance, burst out of chains 
that “ fell off from his hands” and passed through an iron 
gate, “ ivhich opened to him of his own accord , he went down 
from Judcea to Ccesarea , and there abode.”* This is the scrip¬ 
tural account of the matter ; and though no story in the 
Arabian Nights Entertainments could possibly be more ab¬ 
surd, yet nothing in ecclesiastical history could be more 
authentic. 

On what authority, then, can St. Clement be supposed 
to remind the Philippians, that “ Peter, by unjust envy, 
underwent not one or two, but many sufferings, till at last, 
being martyred, he went to the place of glory that was 
due unto him and that u Paul, in like manner, at last 
suffered martyrdom by the command of the governors, and 
departed out of the world, and went unto his holy place, 
being become a most eminent pattern of patience unto all 
ages ?” Surely the modernism of this manner of descrip¬ 
tion must strike almost the dullest apprehension. Here 
are neither place, nor time, nor circumstance specified, as 
we should look for them in an historical statement. And 
“ by the command of the governors,” forsooth ! Oh, yes ; 
any governors you please : Bonaparte, or the Great Mo¬ 
gul, I suppose. It is outrageous romance ! 

The merit of the invention, however, belongs to other 
hands. It will be found, on a critical investigation, that 
the source from whence Clement drew, and from which is 
derived also the common belief that the apostles suffered 
martyrdom, is the Famous and Renowned Apostolic 
History of Abdias, the first bishop of Babylon, who (if we 
will believe ,) had been ordained immediately by the apos¬ 
tles themselves, and who with his own eyes had seen the 
Lord. 

These ten books of Abdias, though rejected entirely by 
the shrewder prudence of modern Christianity, contain the 
continuance of that broken and irregular jumble of the real 
journal of some Egyptian missionaries with the fabulous 

* Acts xii. 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. ‘ 293 

adventures of imaginary apostles, which the cl arch retains 
under the name of the Acts of the Apostles. 

Nothing can be more sophistical than the whole plan of 
reasoning, and system of exhibition observed throughout 
tiie laborious volumes cf Lardner. His method is to sift 
the works of these Fathers for any expression of similar 
character or cast of thought to such as are found in the 
New Testament, upon which similarity he would draw 
the inference that they must have read the New Testa¬ 
ment and have held ifrin the light of a divine revelation ; 
while he passes over the egregious anachronisms, the 
gross blunders, and the monstrous absurdities, which show 
those writings to be such as any one who sincerely wished 
to serve the Christian cause would wish had never ex¬ 
isted. As they appear in Lardner’s management, the 
reader is deceived into an apprehension that they were at 
least respectable. 

St. Paul’s 1st Epistle to the Corinthians is the only 
book of the New Testament quoted by Clement. As a 
parallel to 1 Cor. xv. 20, u But now is Christ risen from the 
dead , and become the first fruits of them that slept” Dr. Lard¬ 
ner quotes from the 24th chapter of the first of Clement, 
the words, “ Let us consider, beloved, how the Lord does 
continually show us that there shall be a resurrection, of 
which he has made the Lord Jesus Christ the first fruits, 
having raised him from the dead where, in the same 
chapter of Clement, follows an argument from seeds , re¬ 
sembling St. Paul’s, 1 Cor. xv. 36, 37, 38 ; but where Dr. 
Lardner wholly omits to let us know that Clement’s main 
argument for the resurrectien is not taken from the cele¬ 
brated 15th chapter of St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, hut 
from the no less celebrated and far more entertaining 15th 
book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses,* where is the whole story 
of the phoenix regenerating itself from its own ashes, 
and returning every five hundred years, to die and revive 
again in the flames upon the idolatrous altars of the tem¬ 
ple of the sun :—an argument which it is utterly impossi¬ 
ble that St. Clement could have used, had the gospels 
then in existence been considered as of higher credibility 
than the stories of Ovid, or had he himself believed that 
the resurrection of Christ was more probable than the fa¬ 
ble of the phoenix. 

* Haectamen ex aliis ducunt primordia rebus; 

Una est qu® rep ’.ret seque ipsa reseminet, ales : 

Assyrii Phoenicia vocant. Ovid. Metamorph. lib. 15, line 391. 

26* 


294 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


SAINT HERMAS, A. D. 100. 

Bishop of Philipolis, 

Who is saluted by St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, 
and whose work entitled The Pastor, or Shepherd, was, in 
the time of Eusebius, publicly read in the churches,* and 
in the judgment of Origen was held to be divinely inspired, f 
deserves all the respect due to an author who confesses 
himself to be a wilful asserter of known falsehood. 
Lardner, who makes large extracts from his writings, to 
prove thereby the credibility of the gospel history ; has the 
disingenuineness to conceal, and pass over entirely unno¬ 
ticed, this characteristic feature of an authority that serves 
him well enough, at the time, to support his gospel credi¬ 
bility, leaving the character of the holy Father out of all 
weight in the consideration of his testimony. 

I cannot send this apostolic father and his divinely in¬ 
spired book to their eternal rest, in the judgment of my 
readers, with greater fairness, than by presenting them 
with a chapter as a specimen. The annexed is the whole 
of the fourth chapter of the second book, from Archbishop 
Wake’s translation :— 

“ 1. Moreover, the angel said unto me, Love the truth, 
and let all the speech be true which proceeds out of thy 
mouth, that the spirit which the Lord hath given to dweil 
in thy flesh, may be found true towards all men, and the 
Lord be glorified, who hath given such a spirit unto thee ; 

“ 2. Because God is true in all his words, and in him 
there is no lie ; 

“ 3. They, therefore, that lie, deny the Lord, and be¬ 
come robbers of the Lord, not rendering to God what they 
received from him : 

“ 4. For they received the spirit free from lying ; if, 
therefore, they make that a liar, they defile what was com¬ 
mitted to them by the Lord, and become deceivers. 

“5. When 1 heard this, I wept bitterly ; and when the 
angel saw me weeping, he said unto me, Why weepest 
thou ? 

“ 6. And I said, Because, sir, I doubt whether I can be 
saved. 

“ 7. He asked mo, Wherefore ? 

u 8. I replied, Because, sir, I never spake a true word 
in my life, but always lived in dissimulation, and affirmed 


* Lardner, vol. 1, p. 305. 


t Ibid. p. 551. 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. * 295 

a lie for truth to all men, and no man contradicted me, but 
all gave credit to my word ; 

“ 9. How then can I live, seeing I have done in this 
rnanuer ? 

“ 10. And the angel said unto me, Thou thinkest well 
and truly ; 

“11. For thou oughtest, as the servant of God, to have 
walked in the truth, and not have joined an evil conscience 
with the spirit of truth, nor have grieved the holy and 
true Spirit of God. 

“ 12. And I replied unto him, Sir, I never before heark¬ 
ened so diligently unto these things. 

“ 13. He answered me, Now thou hearest them, take 
care from henceforth, that even those things which thou 
hast formerly spoken falsely for the sake of thy business, 
may by thy present truth receive credit ; 

“ 14. For even those things may be credited, if, for the 
time to come, thou shalt speak the truth ; and by so doing 
thou mayest attain unto life. 

“ 15. And whosoever shall hearken unto this command 
and do it, and shall depart from all lying, he shall live 
unto God.” 


St. Hernias was evidently a Gnostic , or one of the know¬ 
ing ones. “ His principle,” says Beausobre, “was, that 
faith was only fit for the rabblement, but that a wise man 
should conduct himself by his knowledge only.”* He 
seems to have escaped martyrdom. 


ST. POLYCARP, A. D. 108. 

Bishop of Smyrna. 

“ It is a thing confessed and lamented by the gravest 
divines of the Roman Catholic communion, that the names 
and worship of many pretended saints , who never had a rea’ 
existence, had been fraudulently imposed upon the 
church.”f I commend not my suspicions that this Poly carp 
may be one of the unreal order, but leave the reader *o 
give all the respect he can afford to the testimony th*.t 
would subdue our reason to a belief that a venerab e 
inoffensive old man, who, after having lived in undi t- 

* Hermes ... Gnostique. Son principe est que la foi ne convien. qu au peup 
que le sage se conduit par la science.— Beatis. tom. 2, p. 731. 

+ Dr. Middleton’s Preface to his Letter from Rome, p. 59. 




296 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


turbed tranquillity in his bishopric under a Nero and 
Domitian, should have been dragged, in the 86th year ol 
his age, to the cruel death of fire under the government 
of the philosophic Antoninus , and by the magistracy, to be 
sure, of that old rascal again, Herod,* * * § I dare say the 
same who slew the children in Bethlehem : for chronology 
has nothing to do with matters of faith. “ Then came 
there a voice from heaven,” so runs the sacred story, 
u saying, Be of good cheer, Polycarp, and play the man.”f 

“ The proconsul demanded of him, whether lie were that 
Polycarp, beckoning that he should deny it, and adding, 

‘ Consider thine age—swear by the fortune of Caesar : 
repent thee of what is past; say, Remove the wicked.’ 
But Polycarp exclaimed, ‘ 0 Lord, remove these wicked 
and, after concluding a mystical prayer with the usual 
doxology at the end of a modern sermon, he was commit¬ 
ted to the flames ; but the flaming fire framing itself after 
the form of a vault, or sail of a ship, refused to burn so 
good a man ; upon which a tormentor was ordered to be 
fetched, to whom they gave charge to lance him in the 
side with a spear, which, when he had done, such a stream 
of blood issued out of his body, that the fire was therewith 
quenched4 So that the whole multitude marvelled such 
a pre-eminence to be granted and difference to be shown 
between the infidel and the faithful and elect people of God, 
of which number this Polycarpus was one, a right apostol¬ 
ic and prophetical doctor of our time, bishop of the catho¬ 
lic churrh of Smyrna.§ But the Devil procured that his 
body should not be found, for many endeavoured and 
fully purposed to hold communion with his blessed flesh. 
But certain men suggested to Nicetas, the father of Herod, 
and his brother Dalces, to move the proconsul not to give 
up his body, lest the Christians, as they said, should leave 
the crucified , and begin to worship Polycarp.” It is add¬ 
ed, that he suffered with twelve others who came out ol 
Philadelphia. 

There has been a great deal of the well-known Unita- 

* Kai vnyjvTa avTw o tiQr]vaQ/oc HqoiSijc. — Eccl. Hist. lib. 4, p. 97. 

t In/vt IIokvxaQns xai artyitov. — Euseb . lib. 4, c. 14, p. 96, E. 

X “ Who would have thought that the old man had had so much blood in 
him ?” — Macbeth. 

§ O Ss avTtttjkog xai paaxarog xai novi]Qog arTixtifitvog—tdoav to juryt&og axnov 
Ttjg uanrvQtaQ—tTtsTtjdsvaev otg fit] to owuaTiov avTov vip’ r^iiav Xrjcp&etr]—xaintQ 
nokkon 1 e7ti&vnovrTwv tovto noioui , xai xoiviorrioai avrov ro> oyito aaQxiio vnepa/L- 
Xov yovv Tirsg rixiiTijv toy tov IIP £1 JOY nuTfija adskipor tie fiakxi,g — <ag re /oj 
dovvui. x. t. x .— Euseb. Eccl. Hist. lib. 4, c. 14, p. 99, lit. A 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


297 


rian tact of reducing to probability , practised upon our re¬ 
cords of the martyrdom of Polycarp. 

The original story unquestionably ran, that upon the 
piercing of the martyr’s breast, a dove was seen to fly out 
of his body.—See the text of Cotelerius, in his Apostolic 
Fathers; and the remarks of Dr. Middleton, in his Free In¬ 
quiry. The important fact is exscinded from its place in 
Eusebius, for a sufficiently surmiseable purpose. It serv¬ 
ed its turn, while it would serve its turn ; but it has be¬ 
come necessafy that the evidences of the Christian relig¬ 
ion should make some sort of peace with reason, and the 
most entertaining passages of sacred history are consequent¬ 
ly to be sacrificed. Some divines are even for expunging 
the improbable parts of the New Testament itself. Alas, 
what would they reduce it to ! 

In the teeth of such self-evident proof of a fictious char¬ 
acter, and a fictious martyrdom, Dr. Lardner cooly tell us, 
that the relation of the martyrdom of Polycarp, written by 
the church of Smyrna, of which he was bishop, is an ex¬ 
cellent piece, which may be read with pleasure by the 
English reader, in Archbishop Wake’s Collection of the 
Lives of the Apostolic Fathers. 

The name of Polycarp, his bishopric, his martyrdom, 
are entirely unknown to rational or credible history. 


ST. IGNATIUS, A. D. 107, 

Is believed to have been bishop of Antioch in Syria, in 
the latter part of the first and beginning of the second 
century,* and is believed to have succeeded Euodius, who 
had been the first bishop of that see. The name Euodius 
occurs in the list of persons saluted by St. Paul, and this 
seems to be the reason of Eusebius for making a bishop 
of him, though nothing is known of him but the name. 
“ Beside the bishopric,” says Lardner, “the martyrdom 
of this good man, Ignatius, is another of those few things 
concerning him which are not contradicted.” Basnage, 
however, puts the year of Ignatius’s death among the 
obscurities of chronology. Indeed, those learned men 
who have attempted to fix the time, have no other grounds 
than the testimony of Malala a barbarian of the sixth 
century, and the Acts or Martyrdom of Ignatius, the 
genuineness of which Lardner himself admits may be well 
disputed. He concludes, however, that “ as the epistles 

* Lardner, vol. 1, p. 313. 



298 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


we now have of Ignatius are allowed to be genuine by a 
great number of learned men whose opinion I think to be 
founded upon* probable arguments, 1 now proceed to quote 
them as his.” # 

The name of Ignatius is only twice mentioned by Ori- 
gen, and that in so cursory a manner as to preclude any 
inference that Origen himself had any certain knowledge 
of his history. The whole story of his martyrdom is so 
utterly incongruous with time and circumstance, as to 
lead to no other rational conclusion than the probability 
that he is altogether the figment of that pious romance in 
which ecclesiastical historians have ever delighted— 
another name to be added to the long list of saints and 
martyrs, which even the more intelligent of Roman Cath¬ 
olic writers have been constrained to admit never existed 
at all, but were the baseless fabric of a vision, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone. The epistles ascrib¬ 
ed to Ignatius are admitted by all parties to have been 
most extensively altered fram the first or earlier drafts of 
them ; but such as they are, even on amomentary reverie 
of their supposeable genuineness, they afford no testimo¬ 
ny to any one of the essential facts of the Christian story 
Written whenever, or by whomsoever we suppose them 
to be, ’tis certain that the writer held out nothing so lit¬ 
tle as the notion that the events on which the Gospel is 
founded, had ever really happened. Let his mode of rea¬ 
soning tell its own story ! This it is. 

“ Ignatius, which is called Theophorus,f to the church 
which is at Ephesus in Asia, most deservedly happy, 
being blessed through the greatness and fullness of God 
the Father, and predestinated before the world began, 
that it should be always unto an enduring and unchange¬ 
able glory, being united and chosen through his true 
passion, according to the will of the Father, and Jesus 
Christ our God ; all happiness by Jesus Christ and his 
undefiled grace. 

“ There is one physician, both fleshly and spiritual, 
made and not made—God incarnate, true life in death, 
both of Mary and of God—first passible, then impassible, 
even Jesus Christ. 

“ My soul be for yours ; and I myself the expiatory 

* Lardner’s words, vol. 1. p. 316. 

t Theophorus, i. e. one who carries God within him —a name of the same 
stock as Praise-God Barebone ,—another edition of Polycarp’s intercosta 
pigoon. 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


299 


offering fur your church of Ephesus, so famous throughout 
the world. 5 ' 

\§th Cluipttr .— u Now the virginity of Mary, and he 
who was born of her, was kept in secret from the prince 
of this world, as was also the death of our Lord : three of 
the mysteries the most spoken of throughout the world, 
yet done in secret by God. How then was our Saviour 
manifested to the world ? A star shone in heaven beyond 
all the other stars, and its light was inexpressible, and its 
novelty struck terror into men’s minds ; all the rest of the 
stars, together with the sun and moon, were the chorus to 
this star ; but this star sent out its light exceedingly above 
them all, and men began to be troubled to think whence 
this new star came, so unlike to all the others. Hence 
all the power of magic became dissolved, and every bond 
of wickedness was destroyed ; men’s ignorance was taken 
away, and the old kingdom abolished ; God himself ap¬ 
pearing in the form of a man, for the renewal of eternal 
life. From thence began what God had prepared, from 
thenceforth things were disturbed, forasmuch as he de¬ 
signed to abolish death.”* 

Thus far from Archbishop Wake’s English translation. 
Among the passages which Lardner extracts are, from his 
Epistle to the Philadelphians, the following :— 

“ Behold, I have heard of some who say, Unless I find 
it in the ancients, I will not believe in the Gospel ; and 
I said unto them, It is written : they answered me, It is 
not mentioned. But to me, instead of all ancients, is 
Jesus Christ; and the uninterpolated antiquities are his 
cross, and his death and resurrection, and the faith which 
is by him.”f 

Archbishop Wake’s Collection, in English, and Mr. 
Hone’s Apocryphal New Testament, supply the reader 
with so many of the epistles of Ignatius as it suited the 
purpose of Dr. Lardner to recognize. We have, however, 
a billet-doux of this holy father written to the Virgin Mary, 
and her answer to it, of equal authenticity to any other 


* H naq&tna pctQiag xai o toxsxtjg avxtjg, ouoitog xai o&avaxog xov xvqiov xqia 
fivarrjQia xqavytjg, axiva tv rjnv/ia -Otov tnqa/-fh\ niog ovv tipartqto&tj xoig aioMftrt 
Aoxi;q tv ovqavo j, tXa^ixptv vJitq navxag Tovg aoxtqag, xai to iptog avxov avtxXa- 
Xijxov 71V, xai i-eviO/uor nuQU/tv rj xairoxrjg avxov xa St Xoina navxa uoxqu aua 
xai atXtjvt] x°Q°g tysrsTo tw aortqi. — x. t. X. 
t Exovoa nvivv Xtyovrwv on tav utj tv roig aq/atoig tvqio , tv no tvayytXia. ov 
niartvb* xai Xtyovroc /nov avroig, on ytyqanrai, tntxqi&ijoav /101 on ov nqoxti■ ai 
tpoi St aq/tia iotiv Tucfovq Xqiotog ra a&ixxa aq/tia o oxuvQog avxov. — x. i X 
Jlioxtvio bears a future sense. 


300 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


writings of the first century, and even in some respects* ol 
superior evidence. 

The learned and ingenuous Peter Stalloixus, who had 
for some time, through the craft and subtlety of Satan, 
been tempted to doubt the genuineness of this correspon¬ 
dence, subsequently avows his repentance of that danger¬ 
ous scepticism, and declares that the arguments of that 
serious writer, Flavius Dexter, had so convinced his mind, 
that he dared no longer hold their claims as questionable.* 
They are as follows :— 

The Epistle of the blessed Ignatius , to the holy Virgin Mary, 
Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, f 
“ To the Christ-bearing Maria, her own Ignatius 
sendeth his compliments. 

“ You ought to comfort and console me, who am a new 
convert and a disciple of your friend John ; for I have 
learned things wonderful to be told concerning your Jesus, 
and am astonished at the hearing ; but I desire from my 
very soul to be certified immediately by yourself, who 
wast always familiar and conjoined with him, and privy 
to his secrets, concerning the things I have heard. I have 
written to you other epistles also, and have asked concer¬ 
ning the same things.—Farewell ; and let the new con¬ 
verts who are with me be comforted by thee, and from 
thee, and in thee. Amen.” 

The blessed Virgin’s Answer. 

“ To Ignatius, the beloved.fellow disciple, the humble 
handmaid of Christ Jesus sendeth her compliments. J 

“ The things which you have heard and learned frqm 
John concerning Jesus are true ; believe them, cleave to 


* This divine was one of the thousands who reason that there can be no danger 
in believing too much, belief being at any rate the safe side ; for if the moon after 
all should prove to be made of a green cheese, what will become of philosophers ! 

f Christiferae Mariae, suus Ignatius ! Me neophytum Johannisque tui discipulum, 
confortare et consolari debueras. De Jesu enim tuo percepi mira dictu, et stupe- 
factus sum ex auditu. A te aulem quae semper ei fuisti familiaris et conjuncta, et 
secretorum ejus conscia, desidero ex animo fieri certior de auditis. Scripsi tibi 
etiam alias, et rogavi de eisdem. Valeas : et neophyti qui mecum sunt ex te et 
per te, et imte confortentur. Amen. 

t Ignatio delecto condiscipulo humilis ancilla Christi Jesu. De Jesu quae a Jo¬ 
hannas audistiet didicisti, vera sunt. Ilia credas : illis inhaereas et Christ ianitatia 
snsceptae votum firmiter teneas, et mores et vitam voto conforrnes. Veniam autem 
cum Johanne, te et qui tecum sunt viscre. Sta in fide, et viriliter age, nec te com- 
pioveat persecutionis aqsteritas sed valeat et exsultet spiritus tuns in Deo Salutari 
uo. Amen.— Fabricii, Cod • Jipoc. tom. 2, p. 841. 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


301 


them—hold fast the vow you have made to the Christian¬ 
ity which you have embraced, and conform your life and 
manners to that vow ; and I and John will come together 
to visit you. Stand firm in the faith ; act manfully, nor 
let the sharp severity of persecution move you. But may 
your soul fare well, and rejoice in God your Saviour. 
Amen.” 

To be sure these precious epistles were not forthcoming 
before the faith of the church was ripe to receive them ; 
being first published at Paris in the year 1495, but they 
are none the less genuine on that account ; nor is there a 
single argument that can be urged againstt.nem but what, 
in parity of application, would be fatal to the credibility of 
either of our four gospels. Nothing hinders but that these 
jewels might have lain hid under the miraculous keeping 
of divine providence, till the proper time was arrived for 
their being brought to light and set to shine in the bright 
diadem of Christian evidences. And as for all arguments 
drawn from chronology, geography, and other profane 
sciences, Christians have ever found their best policy to 
consist in regarding those who adducd them as objects of 
contempt, in committing their writings unread to the 
flames, and themselves unheard to gaols and dungeons. 
It may, however, be a profitable exercise for the ingenuity 
of believers to try if they can imagine or invent a single 
sentiment of hostility, expression of scorn, or action of cru¬ 
elty, that could be justly merited by the rejecters of the 
writings contained in the New Testament, that would not, 
but a few years back, have seemed with equal justice to be 
merited by the impugners of the epistles of Ignatius. 


RESULT. 

Here ends the utmost extent of testimony to the facts of 
the Christian history to be derived from ihe apostolic Fath¬ 
ers,—that is, from all who can be pretended to have 
written or lived at any time within a hundred years of the 
birth of Christ. It is not possible to produce so much as 
one single sentence or manner of expression from any one, 
friend or enemy, historian or divine, maintainer or im- 
pugner of the Christian doctrines, within the first centu¬ 
ry ; the like of which v/e can conceive to have been used 
by any person who had been witness of the facts on which 
the doctrines are founded, or contemporary of those who 
had been witnesses, or who had believed that those facts 
21 



302 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


had really happened, or had so much as heard that there 
were any persons on earth that had seriously asserted that 
they had happened. The language of these Fathers, who 
are accounted orthodox, to say nothing of what we may 
hereafter gather from heretical information, is every where 
the language of a religious fatuity, childish beyond all 
names of childishness—foolish as folly itself. We should 
just as well find evidence and authentication to Magna 
Charta in the scribblings of an idiot on a wall, or make 
out the particulars of the Punic wars from the records of a 
baby-house, as discover a trace of testimony to fact in any 
documents of the Fathers of the first century. It remains 
only for those who, after an elapse of eighteen centuries, 
have moulded or new-fangled to themselves a system 
which they would now have us consider as u worthy of 
all acceptation,” to show how that which had so little evi¬ 
dence at first, could come to have more afterwards ; or 
how what was never known nor spoken of but as a matter 
of imagination, conceit, and faith, in the first century, 
should come to have a right to be put on the score of his¬ 
torical evidence at any later period. 

The orthodox Fathers (as far as doctrine is concerned 
with orthodoxy) seem only to be distinguished from the 
heretics, in that they occasionally use a strength of lan¬ 
guage in their descriptions of allegorical figments, which 
might seem to approximate to the style of history, and 
might make what they only intended as emblems, pass for 
actual circumstances. Yet against such an acceptation of 
such occasional over-drivings of the allegory, we have 
to consider that we are in possession, not only of the ar¬ 
gument arising from the natural improbability of such al¬ 
legorical exaggerations when mistaken for facts, and the 
total absence of all corroborative and coincident testimony 
which could by no possibility be conceived to have been 
wanting if such facts had ever happened ; but we have the 
concurrent, and it may be called unanimous consent of the 
whole body of Christian dissenters (that is, in the church 
term, the heretics), who from the very first, and all along, 
never ceased to maintain and teach, that no such a person 
as Jesus Christ ever existed, and that all the evangelical 
statements of his miracles, actions, sufferings, birth, death, 
and resurrection, were to be understood in a high and 
mystical sense, and not, according to the letter as facts 
that had ever happened ; and this, too, confirmed by ad¬ 
missions of those who are called orthodox themselves, in 


THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 


303 


many positive passages ; unabated by so much as a single 
sentence that can be produced from any one writer within 
the first, hundred years, which is such as he # would have 
written, or would have suited his character to write, had 
he believed that the Gospel had been founded upon his¬ 
torical fact. And absolutely the only difference between 
Paganism and Christianity—Christians themselves being 
judges—was the difference between the allegorical fictions 
in which the one or the other couched the same physical 
theorems : as is demonstrated, without need of further 
comment, by the juxta-position of their respective texts : 


Julius Firmicius , 
in description of the 
Pagan Mysteries, 
quotes Fagan Priests. 

* But in those funerals and 
lamentations which are annu¬ 
ally celebrated in honour of 
Osiris, their defenders wish to 
pretend a physical reason ; they 
call the seeds of fruit, Osiris, the 
earth, Isis, the natural heat , 
Typhon ; and because the fruits 
are ripened by the natural heat, 
are collected for the life of man, 
and are separated from their 
matrimony to the earth, and are 
sown again when winter ap¬ 
proaches, this they would have 
to be the death of Osiris ; but 
when the fruits, by the genial 
fostering of the earth, begin 
again to be generated by a new 
procreation, this is the finding 
of Osiris. 


Beausobre , 

in description of the 
Christian Mysteries, 
quotes Christian Fathers. 
fin one word, the suffering 
Jesus is nothing else than what 
the Manichaeans called the mem¬ 
bers of God ; that is to say, the 
celestial substance, or the souls 
which have descended from 
heaven. 

The earth is the Virgin ; the 
heavenly substance which is in 
the earth, is the substance of the 
Virgin, of which Jesus Christ 
was formed ; the Holy Ghost 
is the natural heat, by whose 
virtue the earth conceived him ; 
and he becomes an infant in 
being made to pass through the 
plants, and from thence again 
into heaven. 


* Sed in his funeribus et luctibus, 
defensores eorum volunt addere phy- 
siciam rationern. Firgum semina Osi- 
rim dicentes esse, Isim terrarn, Typho- 
nern calorem. Et quia maturates fruges 
calore, ad vitam hominis colliguntur, et 
a terrse consortio separantur, et rursus 
appropinquante hyerne seminantur : hanc 
volunt esse mortem Osiridis, cum fruges 
redduntur : inventionem vero, cum fru¬ 
ges genitali terrse fornento concept®, 
nova rursus, caeperint procreatione gen¬ 
eral.— De Errore Ft ofanarum Re¬ 
ligion uni, p. 6. 


t En un mot, le Jesu Passible, n’est 
autre chose que les Manicheens appel- 
loient les membres de Dieu, e’est a dire 
la substance celeste, ou les ames qui 
sont descendues du ciel.— Beausobre 
Histoire des Dogmes de Manichee, 
liv. 8, c. 4, tom. 2, p. 556. 

La terre est la Vierge, la substance 
celeste, qui est dans la terre, est la sub¬ 
stance Virginale qui compose Jesus ; 
S. Esprit est I’agent par la virtue du 
quel la terre le congoit, est l’enfante er 
le faisant passer dans les pi antes, et dela 
dans le ciel. 


304 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

With more than the significancy that will strike one at 
the first sight, has the learned Montfaucon observed, that 
“ when once a man begins to use his own judgment in 
matters of religion, it is no wonder that he should fre¬ 
quently be in error, since all things are uncertain, when 
once we depart from what the church has decreed — 
that is, in other words, there is no other real argument for 
the truth of the Christian religion, than “ He that beli$ stli 
not shall be damned /”—Mark xvi. 16. 


CHAPTER XLI. 

THE FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


PAPIAS, A. D. 116. 

Bishop of Hierapolis. 

The first of all the Fathers of the second century, and 
next immediately following on those of the first to whom 
exclusively is applied the distinction apostolical , is Papias, 
placed by Cave at the year 110 ; according to others, he 
flourished about the year 115 or 116. He is said by some 
to have been a martyr. Irenmus speaks of him as a hearer 
of St. John, and a companion of Polycarp. fPapias, how¬ 
ever, in his preface to his five books, entitled Jin Explica¬ 
tion of the Oracles of the Lord , does not himself assert that 
he heard or saw any of the holy apostles, but only that he 
had received the things concerning the faith from those 
who were well acquainted with them. “ Now we are to 
observe,” says Eusebius, “ how Papias, who lived at the 
same time, mentions a wonderful relation he had received 
from Philip’s daughters. For he relates, that in his time 
a dead man was raised to life. He also relates another 
miracle of Justus, surnamed Barsabas, that he drank dead¬ 
ly poison, and, by the grace of the Lord, suffered no 
harm ” This deadly poison was certainly not arsenic. 

Dr. Lardner concludes his very brief account of this 
Lather, with a remark which, from any pen but his, would 


* Cum quis eo devenit ut fidei dogmata ex sui judicii arbitrio definiat, nihil mi¬ 
nim est si frequenter aberret : omnia quippe sunt incerta, cum scmei ab eoclo- 
sia\ statulis dbcessum est.— Montfaucor, in prolegom. ad Euseb. Comment in 
J'salmos. 

t i claim to be excused from giving the Greek text in all cases in which the 
translation Is not my own. This is Dr. Lardner’s. 



FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


305 


bear the character of drollery. Immediately after telling 
us that u Papias was a man of small capacity,” he adds, 
u But I esteem the testimony he has given to the Gospels 
of St. Matthew and St. Mark, and to the first epistle of 
St. Peter and St. John, very valuable ; but if Papias had 
been a wiser man, he had left us a confirmation of many 
more books of the New Testament.” * 

It was convenient, however, for Dr. Lardner, and indeed 
essential to tne policy of his whole work, entirely to sup¬ 
press the important evidence by which his readers might 
be furnished with the means of estimating the value of this 
testimony for themselves. It is perhaps a very different 
impression of the character of this primitive bishop, and of 
the value of his testimony, which the reader would be led 
to form, upon consideration of the evidence arising from 
his writings themselves as preserved to us on the author¬ 
ity of his admirer and disciple Irenceus, in which he gravely 
assures us, that he had immediately learned from the evan¬ 
gelist St. John himself, that “the Lord taught and said, 
that the days shall come in which vines shall spring up, 
each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch 
shall be ten thousand arms, and on each arm of a branch 
ten thousand tendrils, and on each tendril ten thousand 
bunches, and on each bunch ten thousand grapes, and each 
grape, on being pressed, shall yield five and twenty gallons 
of wine ; and when any one of the saints shall take hold of 
one of these bunches, another shall cry out, ‘I am a better 
bunch, take me, and biess the Lord by me.’ ” f The same 
infinitely silly metaphors of multiplication by ten thousand, 
are continued with respect to grains of wheat, apples, 
fruits, flowers, and animals beyond all endurance, precisely 
after the fashion of that famous sorites of the nursery upon 
the House that Jack built , the malt, the rat, the cat, the dog, 
the cow, &c. : all which Jesus concluded by saying, “And 
these things are believable by all believers; but Judas 
the traitor not believing, asked him, But how shall things 
that shall propagate thus be brought to an end by the 
Lord ? And the Lord answered him and said, Those who 

* I.ardner, under the head Papias. 

t Docebat Dominus et dicebat venient dies in quibus nascentur vine;e, singula* 
dena millia palmitum habentes, et in uno palmite denia rnillia brachiornm, et in 
uno brachio palmitis dena millia flagellorum, et in uno quoque fiagello, dena millia 
botruum, et in unoquoque botro, dena millia acinorum, et unumquodque acinuni 
expressum dabit viginti quinque metretas vini. Et cum eorurn apprehenderit ali- 
quis sanctorum botrum, alius clamabit. Botrus ego melior sum, me sume, per me 
Dominum benedic .—Hcsc Irencei textus translatio Alberti Fabricii es* 

27 * 


30(5 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

shall live in those times shall see.’'* But even this Chris¬ 
tian conceit wants the merit of originality. It is a poor 
plagiarism from the form of adulation in which the 
sovereigns of India were wont to be addressed, which 
was as follows: 

u May the king live for a thousand years, and the queen 
for a thousand years lie in his bed ; and may each of those 
years consist of a thousand months, and each of those 
months of a thousand days, and each of those days of a 
thousand hours, and each of those hours be a thousand 
years.” t 

Papias, however, notwithstanding his intimacy with the 
Evangelist St. John, and the value of his testimony to the 
Gospels of Matthew and Mark, fell into the slight error of 
believing that no such an event as the crucifixion ever hap¬ 
pened, but that Jesus Christ lived to be a very old man, 
and died in peace in the bosom of his own family. Papias, 
with all his absurdities, had some respect for poetical jus¬ 
tice, would have wound us up the scene decently, and give 
us gospel quite as true, though not r.o bloody. 

Quadratus, a. d. 119. 

Bishop of Athens. 

The testimony on which the advocates of Christianity 
lay the greatest stress, is that of Quadratus. For earli¬ 
ness of time and apparent distinctiveness of attestation, 
they have no other, equal, or second to it. 

He is the only writer, up to the period of the time of his 
existence, who has spoken of the miracles of our Saviour, 
in a sort of language which might make it seem that he 
believed them himself, and took them to be historical 
events. He was endued, says the Chronographyj with the 
gift of prophecy, and wrote an Apology to the emperor 
Adrian. He is not, however, placed by Lardner in his 
proper place as an Apostolic Father, or as next to an Apos¬ 
tolic Father, for reasons, which it is impossible for the 
earnest inquirer after truth not to suspect. He is of the 
same age with Ignatius, and has left us, says Paley, the 
following noble testimony.§ 

* Et adjecit ( scil . Jesus) dicens, Haec autem credibilia sunt credentibus. Et Juda, 
inquit proditore, nop credente, et interrogate : Quomodo ergo tales genitura a 
Domino perficientur ? Dixisse Dominurn : Videbunt qui venient in ilia. 

+ Vir. clar. Thomas Hyde de Schachiludio et Nerdiludio .—Citante Fabricio ad 
locum. 

$ Which I have frequently quoted. It is that by Melmoth Hanmer, to his edi* 
tion of Eusebius, Evagrius, and Socrates, a. d. 1649. 

§ Paley’s Evidences of Christianity, vol. 1. p. 122. 



FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


307 


The testimony of Quadratus. 

u The works of our Saviour were always conspicuous, 
for they were real; both those that were healed, and those 
who were raised from the dead, who were seen, not only 
when they were healed or raised, but for a long time after¬ 
wards; not only whilst he dwelled upon this earth, but 
also after his departure ; and for a good while after it, 
insomuch that some of them have reached our times.” * 

Pa ley adds not another word on this important testi¬ 
mony. It is only by referring to the authority which he 
affects to quote (which is evidently so much more pains 
than he ever took himself) that we learn that this famous 
Quadratus was, even to Eusebius himself, a mere hearsay 
evidence,—“ Among those who were then famous,” he 
tells us, “was Quadratus, whom they say, f together with 
the daughters of Philip, was endued with the gift of pro¬ 
phesying ; and many others also at the same time flourish¬ 
ed, who obtaining the first step of apostolical succession, 
and preaching and sowing the celestial seed of the king¬ 
dom of heaven throughout the world, filled the barns of 
God with increase.” J—“His book,” says Eusebius, “is 
as yet extant among the Christian brethren, and a copy 
thereof remaineth with us, wherein appear perspicuous 
notes of the understanding and true apostolic doctrine of 
this man. That he was one of the ancients,§ may be 
gathered from his own words.” Then follows the famous 
passage which we have given. 

Quadratus, according to such an account of the matter 
as we may gather from the Ecclesiastical History (or 
rather ecclesiastical romance, for such it is) of Eusebius, 
was fourth bishop of Athens, reckoning St. Paul the first, 
Dionysius^ the Areopagite the second, and Publius, his 
immediate predecessor, who as well as himself is said to 
have suffered martyrdom, the third. 

From a letter of Dionysius bishop of Corinth to the 
Athenians, it is indicated that the Athenians had not only 
embraced the faith previous to the martyrdom of the pre¬ 
decessor of Quadratus, but that “ they were now in a 

*The whole passage from beginning to end is— KoSurog , x. r. X. toroQti ravra 
tSiaig ipanaig —“ r« St oo)Ti,Qog r u iQya an naQijv, aXtjOi] yaQ tjv. Oi OtQa- 

nev&svTtg, oi avuorctvreg tx vtxQwr, ot ovx oitpOiiOar yorov Ot(>antvo^troi xcu 
aviaraytroi, aXXa xai *ti naQovrtg. OvSs tnibi^iovxog yovov is aumj^og, aXXa 
xat aTtaXXaytrTog, tjOav tiit /Qorov txarov o>ore xai tig rovg jjytrtQovg x^ovovg 
Tivtg avriov aipixorro.”—Toiovrog ytr ovrog, x. r. X. 

t Joyog txt >—“ as the story goes” “ the tale has it.” —Euseb. Eccles. Hist 
Jb. iii. c. 31. E. linea 3, Ed. 1612. % Ibid, lib. iii. c. 3 linea 11. 

§ Ka&’ tavTov aQ/atortiTa. 


308 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

manner fallen from it, and were by the zealous labours of 
Quadratus reclaimed.”* 

But what if it should turn out that this Quadratus was 
no Christian at all ! That he was a Pagan priest, who 
officiated in the temple of God the Saviour JEsculapius, then 
established at Athens, and that this pretended testimony 
to the Jew-Jesus, is nothing more than a broken para¬ 
graph out of some account that a heathen bishop had given 
of the miracles that were wrought by the son of Coronis. 
Let the reader return to our article JEsculapius , and pro¬ 
pose to his own conviction, and solve as he may the im¬ 
portant queries thence emergent : 

1st. If such an apology as this purports to be, had been 
written to the emperor Adrian, and Eusebius had pos¬ 
sessed or seen a copy of it, why he should not have given 
us the lohole of it, or at least enough to have given it 
distinctiveness of application and sense, so as to put 
beyond all doubt those three grand primaries of every 
written document—who it was that wrote—to whom it 
was that it was written,—and what was the subject of the 
writing ? 

Of these inquiries, the broken sentence which Eusebius 
has given us, affords no solution. It might have been 
written by any body else as well as Quadratus—to any 
body else as well as to Adrian; and of and concerning 
iEscillapius, as well, yea better and more probably, than 
concerning any other figment whatever. 

No mind that hath the faculty of critical comparison, 
can shut from their influence on its conclusion these 
eighteen predications of the case : 

1. That Eusebius was a Christian-evidence manufac¬ 
turer, and was labouring and digging in any way, or on 
any ground, to find or to make a testimony to primitive 
Christianity. 

2. That he lived and wrote in the age of pious frauds , 
when it was considered as the most meritorious exploit to 
turn the arms and defences of Paganism against itself, 
to pervert documents from their known sense, and to sup¬ 
port the cause of Christianity, not only by forging wri¬ 
tings, but by supposing persons who never existed. 

3. That Eusebius himself indirectly confesses that he 
has acted on this principle, “ that he has related whatever 
might redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed 


♦Eusb. Eccl. H'st. lib. iv. c. 22. 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


309 


all that could tend to the disgrace of religion.” * And 
that “if we subtract falsifications, interpolations and 
evident improbabilities, his account of the Christians 
during the first century, amounts to little more than we 
read in that undateable compilation, the New Testa¬ 
ment.”! 

4. That we have no indication whatever, either in the 
New Testament, or in any credible history, that Chris¬ 
tianity had been so successfully preached at Athens, as 
to gain an establishment ; or that that city had become 
the see of a Christian bishop, at any time within the three 
first centuries. 

5. That where Paul himself, with all his gift of tongues 
and power of working miracles, was only regarded as a 
babbler, and derided as a poor insane vagabond, it outra¬ 
ges the faculty of conceit itself, to conceive, that he could 
have appointed and left the regular succession of an eccle¬ 
siastical hierarchy. 

6. That we have the most unquestionable and unques 
tioned evidence, that JEsculapius was worshipped all along 
in Athens, under the express title and designation of Our 
Saviour. 

7. That the miracles subsequently ascribed to Jesus 
Christ, had been previously ascribed to, and believed to 
have been wrought by JEsculapius. 

8. That these miracles, as ascribed to JEsculapius, an¬ 
swer in every particular to those referred to in this passage 
of Quadratus. 

9. That, as ascribed to JEsculapius, these miracles of 
healing, and raising men from the dead (I pray observe, 
not raising the dead, but raising them from sicknesses of 
which they otherwise would have died, and so preventing 
their being numbered with the dead) were characteristic of 
this deity, and come within measure of probability—not 
of their having happened,—but of their having been be¬ 
lieved to have happened. 

10. That that character of openness, publicity and no¬ 
toriety, which Quadratus here challenges as peculiarly 
characteristic of the works of Our Saviour JEsculapius , was 
as peculiarly wanting and deficient, nay, and even renoun- 

* Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, vol. ii. ch. 16, p. 490. See, also, Gibbon’s Vindi¬ 
cation of the 15th and 16th chapters, p. 127, et seq., where he quotes the ‘ two very 
remarkable passages,” wherein this extraordinary admission is made. Hear, also, 
St. Chrysostom : “ Great is the force of deceit! provided it be not excited by a 
treacherous intention.”— Com. on 1 Corinth, ix. 19. 

fMy learned friend’s unpublished Ed. of Plutarch, in Appendice Primo, 11. 


310 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

cea and given up, as the very reverse of the character of 
the miracles ascribed to Our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

11. That tablets were hung up in the temple of iEscu- 
lapius, and all its walls and pillars covered over and em¬ 
blazoned with trophies of his victories over disease and 
death. 

12. That persons who had been healed and raised from 
the dead (that is, recovered from diseases of which they 
had like to have died,) were every day in attendance in 
his temple, certifying the reality of the miracles which 
they sincerely believed h^d been wrought upon them, and 
pouring forth in fervours of ecstatic devotion their grateful 
acknowledgments to the god who had heard their prayers, 
and magnified his power in their miraculous recoveries :—- 
but 

13. That the works of Jesus Christ, were expressly said 
to have been done in secret, and concealed as much as 
possible from human observance. His own resurrection 
is admitted by writers on the Christian evidence, to have 
been only a private miracle.* A character of legerdemain 
and collusion attaches to his most wonderful performances, 
even on the showing of the New Testament itself. When 
he was transfigured f he takes with him only his three 
favourites.—When he turns water into wine, he chooses 
the time when the witnesses were so drunk as not to know 
the difference.—When he raises Jairus’s daughter, he puts 
away all her friends from witnessing the reanimating pro¬ 
cess.—When he cures the blind man, he takes him aside 
from public observance.—When he cleanses the leper, he 
li straitly charged him , See thou say nothing to any man , but show 
thyself to the priest and expressly avows his -aim and in¬ 
tention to have been to bilk and deceive the people.§ 

14. These were the works, and the characteristics of 
the works of the Christian Saviour, in diametrical opposi¬ 
tion to which, the bishop of iEsculapius would with singu¬ 
lar propriety, say, “ But the works of our Saviour were 
always conspicuous, for they were real,” &c. as it follows : 
and as it might have followed, or gone before—The works 
of their Saviour were secret and clandestine, because they 
were not real, nor have Christians so much as one public 
trophy to show, or one individual in the whole world whom 
(hey can bring forward to attest any sort of benefit or ad- 

* See Tgnatius’s Testimony—Belsham’s Evidences, 
t Metamorphosed is the real original word, 
t Mark, i. 44. § Mark, iv. J 2. 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


. 31 ! 


vantage received from their Saviour to the mind, body or 
estate of any man, except in the way of supplying a new 
pretext for levying contributions on the folly, weakness, 
and ignorance of mankind. And 

15. That whereas not more than a twentieth part of the 
Roman empire had embraced the Christian religion, pre¬ 
vious to the conversion of that (as Eusebius calls him) 
moat holy emperor Constantine: the worship of the god 
/Esculapius continued in the heart of the empire under 
an unbroken succession of Pagan bishops, with scarcely 
diminished splendour for several hundred years after the 
pretended diffusion, of the New Light. 

16. That notwithstanding Constantine’s destruction of 
the Phoenician temples, that at Athens still remained. 

17. We have better evidence than any that hath yet 
been pretended for Christianity, of the belief of a miracu¬ 
lous cure wrought by this deity, as late as the year a. d. 
485, which is thirty-five years on this side the middle of 
the fifth century. 

18. Nor, whatever Protestants may choose to think and 
say of the palpable Paganism of Popery, ought they to be 
suffered to blink the historical fact that the religion of Con¬ 
stantine was of the very grossest type and form of all that 
was ever popish.* So that they who choose to deny that 
Christianity and Popery are one and the same religion, 
must make their best bargain of the consequence that fol¬ 
lows on their denial—even that Christianity kept flounder¬ 
ing about, and found no settlement in the world for whose 
benefit it was intended, till it was taken up and established 
by our English Constantine, Henry the Eighth. 


The Christian Apologists, or those who are said to 
have addressed apologies to the Roman Emperors, or Sen¬ 
ate, in vindication of Christianity and of Christians, were 
in order of time— 

1. Quadratus, Bishop of Athens . a. d. 119 

2. Aristides, an Athenian Philosopher . 121 

3. Justin Martyr ... .140 

* See his desire to have Mass and prayers for his soul after death, cap. 71. »d 
<« how he commanded that his picture should not be set in idolatrous temples,” that 
honour being reserved for Christian churches—16. “How he commanded that 
the heathenish military legions should pray on the Lord’s day.”—19. And Lis pie¬ 
ty and faith in the Sign of the Cross—2. And how the Scythians were subjected 
•*nd overcome by the Sign of the Cross.—Ch. 5. B. 4. 



S12 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURA. 


4. 

Melito 




A. D. 141 

5. 

Athenagoras 

• 



178 

6. 

Tertullian 

. 



200 

7. 

Minucius Felix, . 




210 

8. 

Arnobius 

. 



306 


The difference of time between these Christian advo 
cates, precludes us from taking any view of their writings 
distinctively from their occurrence in the regular succes¬ 
sion of Christian Fathers. Of the two first no remains are 
extant. 


ARISTIDES, A. D. 121. 

An Athenian Philosopher and Christian Apologist, of 
whom Eusebius informs us, that u he was a faithful man, 
zealous for our religion, and like Quadratus, wrote an 
Apology for it to Adrian, which,” he adds, “ is still pre¬ 
served among many.” * We have, however, not a word of 
this; nor should we,perhaps, have found such a name as 
that of Aristides among the faithful, if the heathens had 
not had their Aristides the Just , whose name was wanted 
for the martyrology. 


HEGESIPPUS, A. D. 130. 

Is placed by Dr. Lardner forty-three years later, lived 
under Adrian, and wrote on the siege of Jerusalem, com¬ 
prising the ecclesiastical history from the Apostles down to 
his own time. Though Eusebius represents him as hav¬ 
ing lived in the time of the Apostles themselves, or as im¬ 
mediately succeeding them, and having written five books 
of Memoirs of the Apostles , from the fifth of which he gives 
us a long extract concerning the martyrdom of the apostle 
James, the immediate brother of Christ, whom Hegesippus 
thus describesf— u This man was holy from his mother’s 
womb ; he drank neither wine nor strong drink ; neither 
ate any creature wherein there was life. He was neither 
shaven nor anointed, nor ever used a bath. To him alone 
was it lawful to enter into the holy places. He used no 
woollen garments, but wore only fine linen, and he went 
alone into the temple. He was found on his knees, suppli- 

* Eccl. Hist. lib. iv. c. 3. vol. iv. 

t O’ HyjjOtnnog mi Ttj g niiaritjg now anocnohur ytroiutvog Siccdo/rjg—tv to> 
7i*tL7iTin ains vno^vijiiaTi iotoqci rov tqouov —x. r. aliter, o Iwoiynog. — Eccl 
Hist. lib. ii. p 66, c. 22.—B 








FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


313 


eating for the remission of the sins of the people ; so that 
his knees were overgrown with a callosity like those of a 
'•amel; from his continual kneeling in prayer to God, 
and supplication for the people ; and from the excess of his 
righteousness he was surnamed The Just, and Oblias, 
wliich signifies in Greek the bulwark of the people, and righte¬ 
ousness.” * 

I held this passage worthy of preservation, as furnishing 
an additional proof that the first of that order of eccentric 
and fanatical creatures whose successors afterwards came 
to be called Christians, were really Egyptian monks, as 
Eusebius has in positive terms acknowledged them to be, 
the regular descendants and disciples of the philosophy of 
Pythagoras. 

None of the genuine works of this Hegesippus are ex¬ 
tant ; his name, however, and the number and the subjects 
of the volumes ascribed to him being given, there were 
data enow for Christian piety to fall to work upon : 

“There is a counterfeit volume of five books under his 
name, the translator whereof they say St. Ambrose was; 
nay, it is likelier that St. Ambrose himself was the author.” 

So says the Ecclesiastical Chronography, affixed to the 
oldest editions of Eusebius. With Dr. Lardner, however, 
St. Ambrose is an honourable man,—“so are they all—all 
honourable men!” 

I can neither embrace nor entirely reject the inference 
that presents itself, from the fact of the title of Hegesip- 
pus’s five books —the Memoirs of the Apostles —being precisely 
the same as that under which Justin Martyr seems to quote 
the contents of our New Testament. 


JUSTIN MARTYR, A. D. 140. 

Is so called from his being believed to have suffered mar 
tvrdom,—a distinction which entirely harmonizes with the 
admissions of Dionysius, Origen, Tertullian, and Melito, 
that the numbers of martyrs was really very few, and that 
consequently martyrdom was no common occurrence to the 
professors of Christianity. He was born at Flavia Nea- 
polis, anciently called Sichem, a city of Samaria in Pa 

* Otrov xai Oixeya ex sttisv ovSe tinjjv/ov e(paye £vqov snt rrjv xecpaXTjv 01* 
avejtj. EJLutor ovx » fitixparo xai paXaxttw ovx s/q^occto — xaTa.r. X. 

Sic anecxX\xtvau ra yovara avrov dixrjv xaptjXov dt« to ati xu/luttsiv tm yorv— 
r t. A Hegesippus apud Eusebium 


28 



314 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

lestine; a circumstance which fully accounts for tne 
Jewish turn and character which any system of philoso 
phy that had percolated his brain, would necessarily 
imbibe. Dr. Lardner describes him as being- early a lover 
of truth, and informs us that he studied philosophy under 
several masters, first under a Stoic, next under a Peripa¬ 
tetic, then under a Pythagorean, and lastly, under a Plato¬ 
nic philosopher, whose principles and sentiments he pre¬ 
ferred above all others, until he became acquainted with 
the Christian Religion, which he then embraced as the 
only safe and profitable philosophy.”* 

Fabricius supposes that he was born a. d. 89, and suf¬ 
fered martyrdom in the 74th year of his age, which would 
be a. d. 163. 

The testimony of Justin Martyr to the contents of the 
New Testament, for the sake of which he is adduced by 
Lardner, is rendered nugatory by the facts: 1st, of the 
existence of apocryphal gospels, which contained very 
much of the same contents, and in the same language, as 
those that have been since received into the canon of the 
New Testament: 2. That Matthew’s and Luke’s Gospels 
were mere compilations from previously existing docu¬ 
ments, from which Justin might have made his extracts as 
well, or rather than from the compilations of our Evan¬ 
gelists : 3. That he has never mentioned the names of our 
Evangelists, but speaks of his authorities generally as 
Commentaries , or Memoirs of the Apostles: 4. And that he has 
also quoted passages from those Gospels which the Church 
has rejected, with indications of his entertaining as high 
respect for them as for those it has received. 

The principal works of Justin Martyr are his two Apolo¬ 
gies, and his Dialogue with Trypho, the Jew, in two parts; 
the latter of which is generally quoted by such writers as 
Porteus, Doddridge, and Addison, in those contemptible 
and truly wicked treatises on the Evidences of the Chris¬ 
tian Religion, which are written for the purpose of being 
imposed on workhouse children, parish apprentices, and 
candidates for confirmation, to make them believe in the 
miraculous propagation of the Gospel. 

This is the popumr quotation from it:—“There exists 
not a people, whether Greeks or barbarians, or any other 
race of men, by whatever appellation or manners they 

* TavTtjv fiov^v tvQitrxov tpikonocpiav adyaAt] rt y.ai avuqtiQov. I found this 
alone the safe and profitable philosophy , are his words. Surely, that word 
philosophy is an infinitely suspicious term for Christianity ! 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


315 


may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agricul¬ 
ture,—whether they dwell under tents, or wander about in 
covered waggons,—among whom prayers are not offered 
up, in the name of a crucified Jesus, to the Father and 
Creator of all things.” One’s wonder that so early a 
Christian should have committed himself in so monstrous 
an absurdity, utterly destructive as it is of all the stories 
of martyrdom which give such pathetic effect to the tale 
of Christian Evidences, is only subdued by the truly para¬ 
lyzing impudence of those who would, in our own day, 
still attempt to impose it on Christian congregations. 

The character and genius of Justin’s Apologies for Chris¬ 
tianity will be best appreciated from so much of the text 
itself as I subjoin. 

Justin Martyr's Apology, addressed in the Year 141. 

A Specimen. 

“Unto the,Autocrat Titus iElius Adrianus; unto An¬ 
toninus Pius, most noble Ciesar and true Philosopher, 
unto Lucius, son of the philosopher Caesar, and adopted 
of Pius, favourers of learning : and unto the sacred Se¬ 
nate, with all the people of Rome; on the behalf of those 
persons who, among all sorts of men, are unjustly hated 
and reproached: I, Justin, the son of Prisons Bacchius 
of Flavia Neapolis, of Palestine in Syria, as one of their 
number, do, suppliant with earnest prayers, present this 
my petition”—( omissis omittendis.) —“You hold not the 
scales of Justice even; for, instigated by headstrong pas¬ 
sions, and driven on also by the invisible whips of evil 
demons, you take great care that we shall suffer though 
you care not for what.* 

“ For verily I must tell you that heretofore those impure 
spirits under various apparitions went into the daughters 
of men, and defiled boys, and dressed up such scenes of 
horror, that such as entered not into the reason of things, 
but judged by appearance only, stood aghast at the spec¬ 
tres ; and being shrunk up with fear and amazement, and 
never imagining them to be devils, called them gods, and 
invoked them by such titles as each devil was pleased to 
nickname himself by.f 

“ Is this language that could have been addressed to those models of justice and 
just government, Adrian and Antoninus ? Would the like of it have been endured 
by any Christian Sovereign ? Has it so much as an appearance of p'ausibili*y ? 

i Reeves’s Apologies, p. 10. 



316 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

“ If then we hold some opinions near of kin to the poets 
and philosophers in greatest repute among you, why are 
we thus unjustiy hated? For, in saying that all things 
were made in this beautiful order by God, what do we 
seem to say more than Plato ? When we teach a general 
conflagration, what do we teach more than the Stoics ? 
By opposing the worship of the works of men’s hands, we 
concur with Menander the comedian ; and by declaring 
the Logos the first-begotten of God, our Master Jesus 
Christ, to be born of a Virgin without any human mixture, 
and to be crucified and dead, and to have risen again, and 
ascended into heaven, we say no more in this, than what 
you say of those whom you style the Sons of Jove. 

u For you need not be told what a parcel of sons the 
writers most in vogue among you assign to Jove. There’s 
Mercury, Jove’s interpreter, in imitation of the Logos,* in 
worship among you. There’s jEsculapius, the physician, 
smitten by a bolt of thunder, and after that ascending 
into heaven. There’s Bacchus torn to pieces, and Her¬ 
cules burnt to get rid of bis pains. There’s Pollux and 
Castor, the sons of Jove by Leda, and Perseus by Danae. 
Not to mention others, I would fain know why you 
always deify the departed Emperors, and have a fellow at 
hand to make affidavit that he saw Cmsar mount to heaven 
from the funeral pile.f As to the son of God, called 
Jesus, should we allow him to be nothing more than man, 
yet the title of the Son of God is very justifiable upon the 
account of his wisdom, considering you have your Mercu- 
rv in worship, under the title of the Worn; and Messenger 
of God. 

“As to the objection of our Jesus’s being crucified, ) 
say, that suffering was common to all the forementioned 
sons of Jove, but only they suffered another kind of 
death. As to his being born of a virgin, you have your 
Perseus to balance that. As to his curing the lame, and 
the paralytic, and such as were cripples from their birth, 
this is little more than what you say of your JEscula- 
pius4 

“ But if the Christian profession must still meet with 

*Tliis Mercury had, however, held his title of the Logos many ages before it 
was challenged for the Christian Mercury.—See chapter 26. 

t In the case of Romulus, one Julius Proculus, a man ef exemplary virtues, 
took a solemn oath that Romulus, himself appeared to him, and ordered him to 
inform the Senate of his being called up to the assembly of the gods, under th# 
name of Quirinus. — Plutarch, and Dionysius Halicar. lib. 2, p. 124. 

t See ^Esculapius and Jesus Christ compared, chap. 20. 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 317 

emch bitter treatment, remember what I told you before, 
that the farthest you can go Is to take away our lives,* 
but the loss of this life will certainly be no ill bargain to 
us; but you indeed, and all such wicked enemies without 
repentance, shall one day dearly pay for this persecution 
in fire everlasting.! And as far as these things shall 
appear agreeable to truth, so far we would desire you to 
respect ’em accordingly : but if they seem trifling, despise 
them as trifles : however, don’t proceed against the profes¬ 
sors of them, who are people of the most inoffensive 
lives, as severely as against your professed enemies. For 
tell you I must, that if you persist in this course of iniquity, 
you shall not escape the vengeance of God in the other 
world.”! 


The reader has here a fair specimen of the whole com¬ 
position, and a complete view of the state and character 
of the most primitive Christianity. 

It will be seen from the fickleness of Justin’s character, 
arid the infinitely suspicious style of his Apology (which it 
is impossible to believe was ever presented at all,) that it 
is in the highest degree doubtful whether he was really a 
Christian, or any thing more than an Ammonian philoso¬ 
pher; that is, one of the sect of Ammonius Saccas, who in 
the second century maintained, that all religions were 
equally founded in the delirium of crazy brains, and in 
the craft of shrewd ones ; and that there was no such 
difference between Paganism and Christianity, but that 
they might very well be incorporated and considered as 
one and the same, equally proper to be solemnly tau B ht, 
and had in respect by the common people, and laughed at 
in secret by the wise. § 

The story of his martyrdom has no other plausibility 
of history than a brief notice of a lewd quarrel with a 
cynical philosopher, Crescens, who was provoked to knock 
him cn the head for bringing a charge which we have had 
Christian bishops who would have felt more disposed to 
forgive than to resent. || 

The attempt to represent Justin as a martyr, strongly 

* A reluctant admission that no lives had been taken away. 

t P. 76, ch. 40. t P. 90. ' 

§ Tl'.e celebrated Origen had, in his early days, been a disciple of the all-accom 
niodating Aminonius.— Lardner, vol. 1. p. 520. 

|| Kfjiaxijc yovr o tvvtoThvnac tv iisya/.tj noltt tj ai^f^amta per varrag 
vtyxt. Crescens himself gave the fittest translation of this passage.— Euseb. Eccl 
ttist. lib. 4, c. 15. B. 


28* 



SIS FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

illustrates the general character of Christian martyrdom. 
Those who suffered by the most just and impartial admin¬ 
istration of the laws, as robbers or murderers, or who 
brought on themselves the consequences of the provoca¬ 
tions they had given, so they made a profession of Chris¬ 
tianity, never failed to acquire the posthumous renown of 
martyrdom. Ail Christian thieves were sure to pass for 
saints; and even our Henry VIII. and Queen Mary have 
been represented as the victims of persecution, suffering 
under the obstinacy of their heretical subjects. 


MELITO, A. D. 141. 

Bishop of Sardis. 

Melito, supposed by some of the moderns to be the 
same as the Angel of the Church of Sardis , whom Christ is 
represented in the Revelation of St. John, as ordering 
that Apostle to address in the Epistle there dictated, was 
Bishop qf Sardis in Lydia. In the very ancient Chrono- 
graphy affixed to the oldest English editions of Eusebius, 
and which, upon the whole I find easiest to be conciliated 
to some sort of consistency with circumstances, he is 
called Meliton, and placed next to Justin, at a. d. 141, 
which is sixty-four years earlier than his place in Lard- 
ner. He dedicated an Apology to Marcus Antoninus in 
behalf of the Christian community, then under suffering, 
which Eusebius, in his Chronicle, places at the year 170. 
As Marcus Antoninus began his reign March 7, a. d. 161, 
this Apology at least cannot be dated earlier than that 
time ; and taking it, upon the most laborious investiga¬ 
tion, to be one of the most genuine and authentic docu¬ 
ments, of so high antiquity, that antiquity could ever 
supply: it may be well esteemed to be matter of real and 
substantial evidence. Making the due allowance for the 
barbarity of the times, and hoping, as we may, that it 
was the cruelty of others, and not his own fanaticism, 
that made him an eunuch , one cannot enough admire the 
elegant simplicity and plain and rational statement of the 
probable, and therefore convincing, facts that rest on the 
authority of his most unexceptionable statement. Euse¬ 
bius has preserved a large fragment of this important 
document, from which Dr. Lardner liberally renders for us 
lie annexed paragraph, which he says is remarkable for 
eliteness, as well as upon other accounts: 

u Pious men,” says he, “ are now persecuted and ha- 



FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 319 

rassed throughout all Asia by new decrees, which was 
never done before and impudent sycophants, and such 
as covet the possessions of ethers, taking occasion from 
the edicts, rob without fear or shame, and cease not ;o 
plunder those who have offended in nothing. If these 
things are done by your order, let them be thought to be 
well done—for it is not reasonable to believe that a just 
emperor should ever decree what is unjust—and we shall 
cheerfully bear the reward of such a death. But if this 
resolution and new edict, which is not fit to be enacted 
against barbarians and enemies, proceeds not from you, 
much more would we entreat you not to neglect and give 
us up to this public rapine.” 

But perhaps it w r as not, in Dr. Lardner’s view, conducive 
to the interests of piety and religion, to have continued 
his quotation into the very next paragraph of this docu¬ 
ment. For the importance of the truth with which it teems, 
this single passage outweighs the value of a thousand 
volumes of factitious evidences. Other testimonies only 
serve to thicken the darkness, and to remove the truth we 
seek still further and further from the reach of our re¬ 
search ; this leads us directly to it, and with so much the 
happier effect, as it appears to have been no part of our 
guide’s design to have done so. The sincerity and devo¬ 
tion of this Father’s mind to the Christian cause, renders 
a testimony like his such as Christians themselves must re¬ 
spect. The adverse bearing of the testimony of a friendly 
party, like the favourable bearing of the admissions of an 
enemy, is universally considered to constitute the most 
satisfactory sort of historical certainty. I hold the pre¬ 
servation of this important passage, and bringing it forth 
into the prominence it challenges, worth a place in my 
text itself, and the more so, as I feel assured that there is 
no writer on the Christian evidences whatever who has 
hitherto quoted the passage, or who, if he had possessed 
diligence of research enough to have found it, would not 
have taken pains to bury it again. This it is: 

JT yctQ xa-fr’ rjitug (piXorfotpta, tiqotsqov \uev sv ftayfiuQoig rjxuaatv. ETcar&^aana 
it roig ooig e&rf.(Ti xura rtjv avyovarov rov oov ngoyovov fifyabjv (XQ/^r, eysvvr^rj 
fia?.iOTcc rt] ot] (i(xoiXstu aiaiov aya&ov. 

“For the philosophy which we profess, truly flourished 
aforetime among the barbarous nations; but having blos¬ 
somed again (or been transplanted) in the great reign of 


To ya() ovds noinoTs yeropevov* 


320 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


thy ancestor Augustus, it proved to be above all things 
ominous of good fortune to thy kingdom.” 

The passage continues: “For from thenceforth the Ro 
man empire increased in glory, whose inheritor now you 
are, greatly beloved indeed by all your subjects : both you 
and your sou will be continually prayed for. Retain, 
therefore, this religion, which grew as your empire grew; 
which began with Augustus, which was reverenced by 
your ancestors before all other religions. Only Nero and 
Domitian, through the persuasion of certain envious and 
malicious persons, were disposed to bring our doctrine 
into hatred. But your godly ancestors corrected their 
blind ignorance, and rebuked oftentimes by their epistles 
the rash enterprises of those who were ill affected towards 
us. And your own father wrote unto the municipal author¬ 
ities in our behalf, that they should make no innovations, 
nor practice anything prejudicial to the Christians. And 
of yourself, we are fully persuaded that we shall obtain 
the object of our humble petition, in that your opinion and 
sentence is correspondent unto that of your predecessors, 
yea, and even more gracious, and far more religious.” 

This document—and it is wholly indisputable—is ab¬ 
solutely fatal to all the pretended historical evidences of 
Christianity, inasmuch .as it demonstrates the facts— 

1st. That it is not true that Christians, as such, had ever 
at any time been the objects of any extensive or notorious 
political persecution. 

2nd. That it is not true that Christianity had any such 
origin as has been generally imagined for it. 

3rd. That it is not true that it made its first appearance 
at the time generally assigned ; for, ncoreQOv rjit^iaosv, it had 
flourished before that time. 

4th. That it is not true that it originated in Judea, which 
was a province of the Roman empire; for it was an impor¬ 
tation from some foreign countries which lay beyond the 
boundaries of that empire. 

It is enough to arrange in their places the minor name 3 
of Apollinaris, Dionysius of Corinth, Athenagorac, Theo- 
philus of Antioch, Miltiades, Serapion, and whoever else 
there may have been in the space of time from Mtiico, 
whose testimony is so essential, till we come to these dis¬ 
tinguished luminaries of the chorcn, and pillars cf the 
faith, with whom it is absolutely necessary to be acquaint¬ 
ed. The rest are but as sparks on tinder. 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


321 


ST. IRENjEUS, a. d. 192. 

Bishop of Lyons . 

Learned men are not no-reed about the time of Irenseus, 
or of his principal work against heresies. He was bishop 
of Lyons in Gaul. One cannot reasonably fix; him at so 
early a date as is sometimes claimed for him (as having 
been the disciple of Polycarp, who was the disciple of 
St. John), on account of the later date of the heresies and 
corruptions of Christianity, against which he has written, 
and which must of course have had time to have spread, 
and to have become very serious evils, before they could 
have called for the composition of so learned and laborious 
a work intended to expose and refute them. It would be 
incompatible with that argumentative generosity which I 
have proposed to myself as the principle of this Diegesis, 
to take up as a proposition the earliest date that the 
learned would grant me for this Father, for the sake of 
pouncing on the fatal corollary that must follow; i. e. if so 
early wrote Irenseus, so much earlier still must those he¬ 
retical forms of Christianity have obtained in the world, 
which Irenseus wrote to refute; they, then, were not de¬ 
rived from Christianity, but Christianity was derived from 
them; they are not corruptions and depravations from an 
original stock of primitive orthodoxy, but they are them¬ 
selves the primitive type, and orthodoxy is either a cor¬ 
ruption or an improvement upon them. Like all the rest 
of the noble army, Irenseus contrived to carry off the 
crown of martyrdom; but as, at any rate, the blood-thirsty 
Pagans suffered him to enjoy his bishopric in peace till he 
was ninety-three years old, he had not much to complain 
of, in their expediting so slow a progress to glory. 

He is honoured by Dr. Lardner with the epithet, “ thit 
excellent person and is called by Photius the divine Irenseus. 
The best account of him which the English reader can 
expect to find, is in Middleton’s Free Inquiry into the Mi¬ 
raculous Powers, &c. in which he is neither spared nor 
flattered. The best apology for him is one of the oldest in 
being, and which we have continual occasion to remember 
in reading the works of Christian divines, u Remember 
that the Holy Ghost saith, Omnis homo mendax We 
must not wonder, then, that Irenseus should have been in 
the habit of asserting as true, not only what he himself 
knew to be false, but, in the plenitude of that security of 


322 FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

not being contradicted, and of being able to cloak himself 
up in the sanctity of affected contempt for all who were 
more honest and better informed (on which all other 
churclunon as well as he place their ultimate reliance), 
that he should put forth as truth what he knew was im¬ 
possible to be so, and what every sensible man in the world 
must have known so too; that he should audaciously mis¬ 
read inscriptions on public monuments, and pretend au¬ 
thorities for the proof of the Christian religion, even in 
the teeth of thousands who both knew and saw that there 
was nothing of the sort in existence. 

Thus he pretended that there was a monument or image 
between two bridges on the river Tyber at Rome, bearing 
an inscription to Simon the holy God* which the Devil had 
caused to be erected there to the honour of Simon Magus, 
whom they were to be persuaded by that sort of proof 
that their ancestors had worshipped; thence to infer a co¬ 
incidence with the apostolic history. 

Amid innumerable ridiculous stories, he tells usf that 
John, who leaned on the breast of our Saviour, was a 
priest, a martyr, and a doctor of divinity, and wore a 
petalon (some part of the Popish trumpery), which, on 
such authority as this, was to claim the sanction of apos¬ 
tolic institution. The distinctness and solemnity of his 
assurance that miracles were still in full vogue in the 
church in his days; that u they still possessed the power 
of ’•aising the dead, as the Lord and his apostles did, 
through prayer; and that oftentimes the whole church of 
some certain place, by reason of some urgent cause, with 
fasting and chaste prayer hath brought tp pass that the 
departed spirit of the dead hath returned to the corpse, 
and the man was, by the earnest prayers of the saints, re¬ 
stored to life again.” Such a man never expected that 
rational beings would believe him: no good cause would 
thank him for his advocacy. 

However early Irenceus be placed in the order of Chris¬ 
tian Fathers (Dodwell supposed that he was born as early 
as the year 97, and Dr. Lardner places him at a. d. 178, 
and distinguishes him as a saint), so early prevailed many 
of the grossest absurdities and superstitions which Pro¬ 
testants are wont to consider as peculiarly characteristic o r 
the church of Rome. 


* Euscb. lib. 2, c. 34. 


t Ibic lib. 3, c. 2$. 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 323 

pantasnuSj a. d. 193. 

Pantsenus has claim on our acquaintance as master o 1 
Clemens Alexandrians and Origen, and head of the univer¬ 
sity or school of Alexandria, in Egypt; though, on the best 
calculations, it would seem that he was living even in the 
third century. His high authority is indicated in the cir¬ 
cumstance of Origen’s pleading his example in justification 
of his study of heathen learning. Photius speaks of him 
as a hearer of some who had seen the apostles, and even 
of some of the apostles themselves. 

Eusebius bears this important testimony to his character 
and place in history:* “At that time {soil, about the period 
of the accession of Commodus) there presided in the 
school of the faithful at that place (soil. Alexandria) a man 
highly celebrated on account of his learning, by name 
Pantcenus. For there had been from ancient time erected 
among them a school of sacred learning, which remains to 
this day; and we have understood that it has been wont 
to be furnished with men eminent for their eloquence and 
the study of divine things; and it is said that this person 
excelled others of that time, having been brought up in 
the Stoic philosophy; that he was nominated or sent forth 
as a missionary to preach the gospel of Christ to the na¬ 
tions of the East, and to have travelled into India. For 
there were yet at that time many evangelists of the word, 
animated with a divine zeal of imitating the apostles, by 
contributing to the enlargement of the gospel, and build¬ 
ing up the church: of whom this Pantsenus was one; who 
is said to have gone to the Indians , where it is commonly 
said he found the gospel of Matthew, written in the He¬ 
brew tongue, which before his arrival had been delivered 
to some in that country who had the knowledge of Christ, 
to whom Bartholomew, one of the apostles, is said to have 
preached, and to have left with them that writing of Mat¬ 
thew, and that it was preserved among them to that time. 
This Pantsenus, therefore, for his many excellent perform¬ 
ances, was at'last made president of the school of Alex¬ 
andria, where he set forth the treasures of the divine 
principles both by word of mouth and by his writings. ”f 

What St. Jerom says of this ancient Christian, is to this 
purpose: “ Pantsenus, a philosopher of the Stoic sect, ac¬ 
cording to an ancient custom of the city of Alexandria, 
was, at the request of ambassadors from India , sent into 

* I find this passage ready translated for me by Lardner, vol 1, p. 390. 
f Eccles. Hist. lib. 5, c. 9. 


324 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


that country by Demetrius, bishop of Alexandria, wheie 
he found that Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles, 
had preached the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, ac¬ 
cording to the gospel of Matthew, which he brought back 
with him to Alexandria, written in Hebrew letters.”* 

Here have we another clue to the real history of Chris¬ 
tianity, winding up to the same core of the labyrinth, and 
bringing us through a varied tract to the result which wo 
have already ascertained, under the guidance of Melito, 
Eusebius, and Philo. Panttenus, a missionary from the 
Therapeutan college of Alexandria, seems to have brought 
from India the idolatrous legends of the Hindoo god 
Chrishna, whom he imported into the Roman dominions, 
like a good Eclectic as he was, uniting the characters of 
the Grecian, or Phoenician Yesus, and the Indian 
Chrishna, u in one Lord Jesus Christ ,” whose history, at 
first contained in the Diegesis, or general narrative, was 
re-edited by three Egyptian secretaries, afterwards yclept 
the evangelists, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and subse¬ 
quently enlarged by an appendix of Egyptian rhapsodies, 
under the denomination of the Gospel according to St 
John. The discovery of the unknown term in a quadratic 
equation, never more entirely responded to all the requi 
sites of the problem, than these facts do to every rational 
query that can arise out of the phenomena of the gospel 
legend. 

CLEMENS ALEXANDRINUS, A. D. 194. 

Or, as he is entitled by Dr. Lardner, St. Clement of Alex¬ 
andria, was, as Eusebius intimates, originally a heathen, 
though he succeeded Pantamus as president of the monk 
ish university of Alexandria, which mankind have to thank 
for the concoction or getting up the whole gospel scheme, 
as originally imported from India , and modified to the 
taste of the nations which acknowledged the supremacy 
of Rome. Mr. Dodwell was of opinion that all the works 
of Clement which are remaining were written between the 
years 193 and the end of 195. His works are very exten¬ 
sive, his authority very high in the church, and his name 
and place in history chiefly to be remembered on account 
of die frequent quotation of his Stromata , or fragments, and 
other pieces. In point of evidence he affords nothing, ex¬ 
cept that from the circumstance of the four gospels having 
received the more particular countenance of the Alexan 

* St. Jerom quoted by Lardner, vol. 1, p. 391. 



FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 


325 


drine college, over which he presided, he and all other 
aspirants to university honours, and the ecclesiastical 
emoluments that would follow them, must be expected to 
pay all due deference to the books his university had 
chosen to patronize. 


TERTTJLLIAN, A. D. 200. 

Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus, the last that 
can be read into the second century, and the very first of 
all the Latin Fathers, was, like the rest of them, original¬ 
ly a heathen, was afterwards a most zealous and orthodox 
Christian, and finally fell into heresy. He was made 
presbyter of the church of Carthage in Africa, of which 
he was a native, about a. d. 193, and died, as may be con¬ 
jectured, about the year 220. As he had become tinctured 
with heresy, he lost the honour of his place in “ the noble 
army of martyrs .” 

The character of his style, as given by Lactantius, may 
be allowed by all.— u It is rugged, unpolished, and very 
obscure;” and yet, as Cave observes, it is lofty and mas¬ 
culine, and carries a kind of majestic eloquence with it, 
that gives a pleasant relish to the judicious and inquisitive 
reader. u There appears,” says Lardner, in his writings 
frequent tokens of true unaffected humility and modesty—• 
virtues in which the primitive Christians were generally 
so very eminent.” 

Of this assertion of Dr. Lardner, and, consequently, of 
the character of assertions likely to be made by the Doc¬ 
tor generally, where the honour of Christianity and of 
Christians was to be maintained, I leave the reader to 
judge from the annexed 

Specimen of St. Tertullianus true unaffected humility and mod¬ 
esty, in his discourse against the sin of going to the Thea¬ 
tre. 

“ You are fond of spectacles: expect the greatest of all 
spectacles—the last and eternal judgment of the universe* 
How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, hew exult, 
when I behold so many proud monarchs and fancied gods 
groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magis¬ 
trates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefving in 
fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians, 
so many sage philosophers blushing in red-hot names, with 
their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets tremb 
ling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but cf Christ; so 
29 



326 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CEITTUTt.r. 


many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their 
own sufferings; so many dancers,”* &c.—I hcpe the rea 
der may think here is humility and modesty enough! 
Specimen of Tertullian's manner of reasoning on the evidences 
of Christianity .f 

u I find no other means to prove myself to be impudent 
with success, and happily a fool, than by my contempt of 
shame; as, for instance,—I maintain that the Son of God 
was born: why am I not ashamed of maintaining suck a 
thing? Why! but because it is itself a shameful thing. 
—I maintain that the Son of God died: well, that is 
wholly credible because it is monstrously absurd.—I 
maintain that after having been buried, he rose again: and 
that I take to be absolutely true, because it was manifestly 
impossible. 

This language, not being protected by privilege of in¬ 
spiration, is allowed to convey its full drift of absurdity to 
our awakened intelligence. It is safest to go to sleep and 
give God the glory, over the perfectly parallel rhapsodies 
of the inspired chief of sinners. 

Where Tertullian is intelligible, his testimony to the 
status rerum of Christianity up to his time, is highly impor¬ 
tant. And ’tis from his Apology addressed to the Emperor 
and the Roman Senate in the year 198, which Dr. Gard¬ 
ner justly calls his master-piece, that we collect a testi¬ 
mony corroborative of that of Melito, of Origen himself, 
and of the highest degree of conjectural probability, in 
demonstration of the utter falsehood and romance of 
the whole proposition on which Paley rests the stress of 
his Evidences of Christianity. So far is it from truth, 

* Supersunt alia spectacula, ille ultimus et perpetuus judicii dies, ille nationibus 
insperatus ille derisus, cum tanta seculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates uno igne hau- 
rientur. Quae tuuc spectaculi latitudo ? quid admirer ! quid rideam ! ubi gaudeam, 
ubi exultem, spectans tot et tantos reges, qui in caelum recepti riunciabantur, in imis 
tenebrj'3 congemiscentes ? item presides persecutor Dominici nominis, saevioribus 
quam ipsi flammis saevierunt liquescentes ? Quos sapientes philosophos coram dis- 
cipulis suis una conflagrantibus erubescentes, etiam Poetas, non Rhadarnanti nec 
ad Minoissed ad inopinati Chiisti tribunal palpitames, &c.— Ita c.tat locum Pa - 
l'anus Obtrectator, p. 150. Sufficiat lectc n justo pro auctoritate. —R. T. 

t De Spectaculis, c. 30. 

t So rendered and authenticated by the original text, quoted in my “ Syntag¬ 
ma,” p. 106, my first publication from this prison; a work which those whose 
scandalous impostures and audacious sianders provoked, find it wisest to treat with 
contempt. The Christian war is always Parthian. Its tact is to throw out its 
calumnies, but never to allow the accused his privilege of defence. To read the 
vituperations that Christians heap on infidels, is an exercise of godly piety: to ven¬ 
ture but to look on an infidel’s vindication, is playing with edged tools.—None 
rail so loud, as they who rail in safety ! 


FATHERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY 


327 


that Christians were ever the victims of intolerance and 
persecution on the score of their profession of a pure and 
holy doctrine, that in addition to the testimony of the 
general sense and fairest scope of the greatest number of 
texts of Scripture itself,* * * § the truly respectable suffrage of 
Melito bishop of Sardis, the express declaration of Origen,! 
that up to hie time the number of martyrs was very incon¬ 
siderable, and above all, to the irresistible conviction of 
ail the rational probabilities of the case, we may now add 

THE TESTIMONY OF TERTULLJANif 

U That the wisest of the Roman Emperors have been protectors of 
the Christians. 

u The Christian persecutors have been always men di¬ 
vested of justice, piety, and common shame, upon whose 
government you yourselves have put a brand, and res¬ 
cinded their acts by restoring those whom they con¬ 
demned. Bu.t of all the Emperors down to this present 
reign, who understood any thing of religion or humanity, 
name me one who ever persecuted the Christians. On 
the contrary, we show you the excellent M. Aurelius for 
our protector and patron, who though he could not pub¬ 
licly set aside the penal laws, yet he did as well, he 
publicly rendered them ineffectual in another way, -by 
discouraging our accusers with the last punishments, viz. 
burning alive. 

“ Does not the prison sweat with your heathen crimi¬ 
nals continually?—Do not the mines continually groan 
with the load of heathens?—Are not your wild beasts fat¬ 
tened with heathens?—Now, among all these malefactors, 
there’s not a Christian to be found for any crime but that 
of his name only, or if there be, we disown him for a 
Christian . ”§ 

Such language as we have seen Tertullian use, and such 
a spirit of annoyance and actual assault upon the rights 

* 1 Timothy, iv. 8. Godliness is profitable, &c.— 1 Peter, iii. 13. And who 
is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good ?—v 16, That 
they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation.—Matthew, v. 
That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. 

t Quoted in Gibbon, chap. 15. 

t Reeves’ Apologies of, &c. 

§ This is an early specimen of primitive Quakerism, the policy of a sect of the 
most arrogant, most ignorant, fraudulent, intolerant, and inexorable men that ever 
adorned the gospel and disgraced humanity. In every thing the diametrical reverse 
of their professions. It may seem hard to say that there never was an hoaest man 
among them; but there never was a hard saying so like a true one 


328 


FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 


and liberties of their Pagan fellow citizens, must occasion¬ 
ally have provoked the passions of any men who had no 
supernatural graces to subdue and coerce the sentiments 
of nature. The spitting in a magistrate’s face—the inter¬ 
ruption of Pagan worship, the total expulsion of their 
own children and brethren from all membership, relation, 
or succession of inheritance, in the families of which 
they were a part, upon their not conforming to the faith:* 
and all such sort of conduct as persons who desired 
martyrdom, and delighted in being ill used, would be 
likely to adopt, might be followed frequently by just, and 
sometimes by excessive retribution; but—“ it is certain 
that we may appeal to the grateful confessions of the 
first Christians, that the greatest part of those magistrates 
who exercised in the provinces the authority of the 
Emperor or of the Senate, and to whose hands alone the 
jurisdiction of life and death was intrusted, behaved like 
men of polished manners and liberal education, who res¬ 
pected the rules of justice, and who were conversant with 
the precepts of philosophy.f In one word, the Pagan 
magistrates neither were, nor pretended to be, under the 
influence of supernatural motives, and there are no 
natural motives to incline any men to be cruel and inex¬ 
orable. 


CHAPTER XLII. 

THE FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 


ORIGEN, A. D> 230. 

It is only necessary to follow the isoteric or interior evi¬ 
dences of the Christian religion below the close of the sec¬ 
ond century, for the sake of bringing the reader acquainted 
with the two most distinguished persons that ever were 
concerned with it; Origen, its most distinguished priest, 
and Constantine, its most distinguished patron. Origen, 
was born in that great cradle and nursery of all supersti¬ 
tion, Egypt, in the year 184 or 185—that is, the fifth or 
sixth of the Emperor Commodus, and died in the sixty- 
ninth or seventieth year of his age, a. d. 253. Though 

*-Quaeque Tpse misserima, vidi 

Et quorum! Q.uis talia fando! 
f Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. 15. 




FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 329 

Eusebius flatly denies the assertion of Porphyry, that 
Origen had been originally a heathen,—and was after¬ 
wards converted to Christianity, yet Origen is proud to 
vindicate to himself his imitation of his predecessor, 
Pan tennis, in the study of profane learning. He had 
studied under that celebrated philosopher, Ammonius 
Saccus, who, in the second century, had taught that 
‘• Christianity and Paganism when rightly understood, 
differed in no essential points, but had a common origin, 
and really were one and the same religion, nothing but 
the schismatical trickery of fanatical adventurers, who 
sought to bring over the trade and profits of spiritualizing 
into their own hands, having introduced a distinction 
where in reality there was no difference.” 

This was unquestionably the orthodox doctrine of the 
second century, and it so entirely quadrates with all the 
historical phenomena, that one cannot but hold it honour¬ 
able both to Origen’s head and heart, that he has owned 
his early proficiency in the Ammonian philosophy, under this, 
its illustrious master. 

Leonides, the father of Origen, is said to have suffered 
martyrdom, and to have been encouraged thereto by 
Origen (who was the oldest of his seven children) when 
not quite seventeen years of age: a fact, which if it were 
credible, would bear a very equivocal reading. 

In the sincerity of his devotion to the cause of 
Monkery —from which Christianity is unquestionably de¬ 
rived u he was guilty of that rash act so well known,” 
which he held to be his duty as inculcated by Christ in 
the celebrated Matt. xix. 12. His conduct at least demon¬ 
strates the existence of the text, as of high and unques¬ 
tionable antiquity in his time, and the sincere prostration 
of his mind to its constraining authority. 

This argument, adroitly handled, would constitute one 
of the very strongest evidences of Christianity : and 
played off with the blustering airs of sanctification and 
parade of learning, which are generally called in to the 
aid of canonical sophistication, might much puzzle the 
Sciolist in these studies. The difficulty, however, is in¬ 
stantly dissipated upon collation of the character of the 
text itself, with the facts of history which this Diegesis 
supplies. 

1. The text itself is unworthy of the character of % 
rational and moral inculcation which Christians generally 
challenge for the discourses of their divine master. 

29 * 


330 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY 

2. It goes not to the extent of an institution of the 
practice there spoken of. 

3. The practice is allowed, approved, and sanctioned, 
but not positively enjoined or commanded. 

4. The text implies the historical fact of such a practice 
having existed long anterior to the time of the speaker;— 
and 

5. Necessarily supposes the antiquity and notoriety of 
its prevalence.—This it is, 

“ But he said unto them , All men cannot receive this doctrine , 
save they to whom it is given. For there are some eunuchs which 
were so born from their mother's womb , and there are some 
eunuchs which wire made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs 
which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's 
sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it." 

The Jewish law, which Miicily forbad the making any 
sort of cuttings in the flesh, and allowed not an eunuch 
so much as to enter into the congregation of the Lord,* 
stands in resistless demonstration of the fact, that these 
eunuchs were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. We 
have to look then (where we shall assuredly find them,) 
to the monks of Egypt , who practised these excisions, and 
whose sacred books were none other than the original, 
or first ivritten tale, from which our three first gospels are 
derived,! which had contained the whole gospel story and 
system of doctrine as imported from India, had been 
kept in the secret archives of their monastery, and held 
binding on the consciences of all the friars of their monk¬ 
ish society, long anterior to the times of Augustus, in 
whose reign, or soon after, we may suppose the three 
evangelists to have been appointed by the Alexandrian 
College to give authenticated versions of them into the 
Greek language, for the purpose of the more extensive 
propagation of monkery. 

It has been said of Origen, that he had written six 
thousand volumes. St. Jerom asserts of him. that he had 
written more than any man could read And it is from 
his unwearied pains in reading and writing that some 
think he had the name Adamantius —under which, not 
without occasioning considerable perplexity, his writings 
are sometimes quoted. Lardner thus sums up his cha¬ 
racter; “ He had a capacious mind, and a large compass 
of knowledge, and throughout his whole life was a man 

* Dcut. xxiii. 1. 

t Such was the opinion of Eusebius himself. 


FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 


331 


of unwearied application in studying and composing 
works of various sorts. He had the happiness of uniting 
different accomplishments, being at once the greatest 
preacher and the most learned and voluminous writer of 
the age: nor is it easy to say which is most admirable, 
his learning or his virtue. In a word, it must be owned, 
that Origen, though not perfect, nor infallible, was 
a bright light in the church of Christ, and one of those 
rare personages that have done honour to the human na¬ 
ture. ”* 

He is undoubtedly the most distinguished personage in 
the whole drama of the Christian evidences, nor can any 
man who believes Christianity to be a blessing to man¬ 
kind, have the least hesitation in pronouncing him to have 
been one of the wisest, greatest, and best of men, that 
was ever engaged in promoting it. 

Nothing is so difficult as to determine the limits of the 
part this truly great man has borne in the absolute consti¬ 
tution of the Christian religion. He is the first author 
who has given us a distinct catalogue of the books of the 
New Testament, the first in whose writings such a name 
occurs as expressive of such a collection of writings: nor 
would any writings that he had seen fit to reject have ever 
conquered their way into canonical authority: nor any 
that he has once admitted, have been rejected. If there 
be consistency, harmony, or any where in those writings 
an observance of historical congruity,—the sacred text 
owes its felicity to the criticisms and emendations of Ori¬ 
gen, who pruned excrescences, exscinded the more glaring 
contradictions, inserted whole verses of his own pure in¬ 
genuity and conjecture, and diligently laboured, by claim¬ 
ing for the whole a mystical and allegorical sense, to rescue 
it from the contempt of the wise, and to moderate its ex¬ 
citement on the minds of the vulgar. 

His writings contain the finest and adroitest specimens 
of under-throwing, that could be well adduced; they are a 
sort of looking glass, in which either wise or simple will 
be sure to see the face he likes best. The all-adoiing and 
all-digesting believer, may read his six thousand volumes 
and never be startled out of the brown study of Christian 
orthodoxy,—the reader who hath once learned to snuffihis 
candle as he reads, will ever and anon perceive that Ori¬ 
gen never played the fool, but once. 


* Lardner, vol. i. p. 528. 


332 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

His character needs only the apology which human 
nature claims fur every man— his situation. He was in 
every sense of the word a master spirit—a civilized being 
among the wild men of the woods. There is no occasion, 
however, to act on Dr. Lardner’s avowed principle of 
concealing facts to promote piety.* It is not to be 
denied, that this wisest, greatest, best that ever bore the 
Christian name, relapsed at last into Paganism—publicly 
denied his Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, and did sacri¬ 
fice unto idols. I find that Eusebius as well as Lardner, 
has omitted all mention of this grand and glorious fact; 
and but for the avowed intention of Dr. Lardner to pro¬ 
mote true piety, I should have considered his not finding 
it in Eusebius, an excuse for the omission. It is to be 
found, however, in Origen’s own writings, and is confirmed 
in his life , in the Greek of Suidas. His dolorous lamen¬ 
tation and repentance after this outrageous apostacy, 
presents us with the most authentic, and at the same 
time most demonstrative view of the interior character of 
the most primitive Christianity; and must satisfy those 
who dream of a state of Christianity at any time before 
the Protestant Reformation, when what are called the 
principles of the Reformation were the principles of 
Christianity, how grossly their Protestant teachers have 
deceived them. 

The dolorous Lamentation of Origen. 

c< In bitter affliction and grief of mind, I address 
myself unto them which hereafter shall read me thus 
confoundedly. But how can I speak with tongue tied, 
with throat dammed up, and lips that refuse their office. 
I fall to the ground on my bare knees and make this my 
humble prayer and supplication unto all the saints , that 
they will help me, silly wretch that I am, who by reason 
of the superfluity of my sin, dare not look up unto God. 
O ye saints of the blessed God! with watery eyes and sod¬ 
den cheeks soaked in grief and pain, I beseech you to fall 
down before the mercy-seat of God, for me miserable 
sinner. Woe is me, because of the sorrow of my heart! 
Woe is me, for the affliction of my soul. Woe is me, O 
my mother, that ever thou broughtest me forth, an heir of 
the kingdom of God, but now" become an inheritor of the 
kingdom of the Devil; a perfect man, yea a priest , yet 

* Lardner, vol. i. p. 552. 


FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 333 

found wallowing in impiety; a man beautified with hon¬ 
our and dignity, yet in the end blemished with ignominy 
and shame; a burning light, yet forthwith darkened; a 
running fountain, yet bye and bye dried up; 0 who will 
give streams of tears unto mine eyes, that I may bewail 
my sorrowful plight: 0 my lost priesthood! 0 my dis¬ 
honoured ministry; 0 all you, my friends, tender my 
case!* Pity me, 0 all ye, my friends, in that I have 
now trodden under foot the seal and cognizance of my 
profession, arid joined league with the devil! Pity me, 
O ye, my triends, in that I am rejected and cast away 
from the face of God. It is for my lewd life that I am 
thus polluted, and noted with open shame. Alas, how 
am I fallen. Alas, how am I thus come to nought! 
There is no sorrow comparable unto my sorrow; there 
is no affliction that exceedeth my affliction: there is no 
lamentation more lamentable than mine; neither is there 
any sin greater than my sin; and there is no salve for 
me. Alas! 0 father Abraham! intreat for me, that I be 
not cut off from thy coasts. Rid me, 0 Lord, from the 
roaring lion! The whole assembly of saints doth make 
intercession unto thee for me. The whole quire of an¬ 
gels do entreat thee for me. Let down upon me thy 
Holy Spirit, that with his fiery countenance he may put 
to flight the crooked fiends of the devil! Let me be re¬ 
ceived again into the joy of my God, through the prayers 
and intercessions of the saints, through the earnest pe¬ 
titions of the Church which sorroweth over me, and 
humbleth herself unto Jesus Christ; to whom, with the' 
Father and the Holy Ghost, be all glory and honour, for 
ever and ever. Amen.” So far Origen. 

I have abridged this intolerably tedious farrago, without 
breaking a single sentence, or changing or supplying one 
word not authorized by the original text. 

The most distinguished of all the works of Origen is 
his celebrated answer to Celsus, contained in eight books, 
and from which, it is a very usual though an unfair thing 
to assume that we have what ought to be considered as 


* So absolutely primitive is the Roman Catholic Church, oven in the most ex 
ceptionable of its practices, that we have here, the very form of tvorda in which, 
to this day the benefit of masses and prayers for the souls in pargamry, is formally 
requested, as I have seen them stuck up on the walls of their chapels, in Ireland: 
and in honest truth it must be infinitely more reasonable to pray to the saints, who 
being like ourselves, may be wheedled, to our purposes, than Lo God, who is nec¬ 
essarily immutable, an,d consequently inexorable. 


334 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY*. 

the sentiments of Celsns. The exceeding intolerance of 
Christians against the writings of the enemies of their 
faith; the fact of the destruction of such as they did 
write; and the substitution of such as Christians them¬ 
selves wrote and fathered upon them, in order to make 
them seem to have made none other than such objections 
as were either trifling and weak in themselves, or could 
be most triumphantly answered, should stand in bar of 
all reckoning upon Origen’s report of Celsus’s objections. 
The historical value of this important document is pre¬ 
cisely this: it is a certificate to us of what the evidences 
of Christianity were at the time of its date, in reference 
to such objections as Christians themselves were willing to 
admit that it was liable to; that is, it instructs us what 
Christians thought that their adversaries could not but 
think of them. I subjoin a continuous specimen of this 
celebrated piece, freely availing myself of Bellamy’s trans¬ 
lation; though Origen’s Greek is in general so lucid and 
easy, that hardly any translator could mislead us. 

origen’s ANSWER TO CELSUS. 

Chapter 1.— u Then Celsus goes on, and asserts that Ju¬ 
daism, with which the Christian religion has a very close 
connexion, has all along been a barbarous sect, though he 
prudently forbears to reproach the Christian religion, as if 
it were of a mean and unpolished original.” 

Chapter 2 .— u Now let us see how Celsus reproaches the 
practical part of our religion, as containing nothing but 
what we have in common with the heathens, nothing that 
is new or truly great. To this I answer, that they who 
bring down the just judgments of God upon them, by their 
notorious crimes, would never suffer by the hand of divine 
and inflexible justice, if all mankind had not some tolera¬ 
ble notions of moral good and evil.” 

Chapters 3 and 4 .—Jl curious but idle allegory upon the story 
of the golden calf 

Chapter 5.— u Then Celsus, speaking of idolatry, does 
himself advance an argument that tends to justify and 
commend our practice. Therefore endeavouring to show 
in the sequel of his discourse, that our notion of image- 
worship was not a discovery that was owing to the Scrip¬ 
tures, but that we have it in common with the heathens; 
he quotes a passage in Heraclitus to this effect. 

“ To this I answer, that since I have already granted 
that some common notions of good and evil are originally 


FATHERS OF' THE THIRD CENTURY. 335 

implanted in the minds of men, we need not wonder that. 
Heraclitus and others, whether Greeks or barbarians, have 
publicly acknowledged to the world, that they held the 
very same notions which we maintain.” 

Chapter 6.— u Then Celsus says, that all the power 
which the Christians had was owing to the names of cer¬ 
tain demons, and their invocation of them. But this is a 
most notorious calumny. For the power which the Chris¬ 
tians had was not in the least owing to enchantments, but 
to their pronouncing the name I. E. S. U. S., and making 
mention of some remarkable occurrences of his life. Nay, 
the name of I. E. S. U. S. has such power ovei demons, 
that sometimes it has proved effectual, though pronounced 
by very wicked persons.”* 

Chapter 7.—Celsus being represented to have objected 
that Christ was a very wicked man, and wrought his 
miracles by the power of magic, Origen answers: 

“ Though we should grant that ’tis difficult for us to 
determine precisely by what power our Saviour wrought 
his miracles, yet ’tis very plain that the Christians made 
use of no enchantments, unless, indeed, the name 
I. E. S. U. S., and some passages of the Holy Scriptures, 
were a kind of sacred spell.” 

Chapter 8.—In this Chapter, Origen admits that there 
were some Arcana Imperii, or state secrets, which are 
not fit to be communicated to the vulgar; and justifies the 
fact, from the secret doctrines of the Pagan philosophy. 

Chapter 9.—Presents nothing bearing on Christian evi¬ 
dence. 

* The prevalence of this persuasion is strongly implied in the very fair bargain 
proposed by Simon Magus, who, “ when he saw that through laying on of 
the Apostles' hands the Holy Ghost was given, he offered them money, say¬ 
ing, Give me also this power, that on whomsoever I lay hands, he may re¬ 
ceive the Holy Ghost.” (Acts viii. 19.) And in the fatal experiment of the sev¬ 
en sons of Sceva, who attempted to deal with the Devil, without having served 
a regular apprenticeship— Jesus I know, and Paul I know, said the Devil' 
“ but who are you?” (Acts xix. 15.) It is directly asserted by the formal pro- 
cl imation of St. Peter, “Be it known unto you all, that by the name of Jesus 
Christ of Nazareth, doth this man stand here before you whole; for there 
is none other name under heaven in which we ought to be saved,--tv <» <ht 
tp/ac aov&tjvat. It is a more than curious quadrature with this, and many other 
passages to the like effect, that the name Jesus, and even the name Jesus Christ 
of Nazareth is worshipped in the Catholic church, distinctly from all relation to 
any person whatever, as having an independent charm and virtue in the mystical 
combination of the letters themselves, like the Abracadabra of the Fgyptians, 
the Shem Hemophoresh of the Jews, and the Open sessame of the Arabi¬ 
ans. God forbid it should be thought to have had no more than this sort of talis- 
niarnc virtue, in its eternal repetitions at the close of our Protestant prayers, 
“ through Jesus Christ our Lord,” which ought always to be chanted! 


336 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

Chapter 10.—“And Celsus continues his discourse, and 
advises us to embrace no opinions but under the conduct 
of impartial reason, on account of the many and gross 
errors to which the contrary practice will shamefully and 
unavoidably expose us. And he compares those persons 
who take up any notions without due examination, to the 
designing priests of Mithras, Bacchus, Cybele, Hecate, or 
any other mock deity of the heathens. For as these im¬ 
postors, having once got the ascendant over the common 
people, who were grossly ignorant, could turn and wind 
these silly cattle, as their interest or fancy might direct,* 
so he says, the very same thing was known to be the com¬ 
mon practice of the Christians.” 

In answer to this really formidable objection, instead of 
producing distinct historical testimony to demonstrate that 
the history of Jesus Christ rested on rational and convinc¬ 
ing evidence, and could not therefore be fairly put on a 
level with the fabulous legends of those mock deities, that 
never had any existence but in the conceit of their deluded 
worshippers, Origen himself defends and justifies the self¬ 
same principle of implicit faith , from which all those fabu¬ 
lous legends and mock deities derived their authority, and 
proceeds— 

“A vast number of persons who have left those horrid 
debaucheries in which they formerly wallowed, and have 
professed to embrace the Christian religion, shall receive 
a bright and massy crown when this frail and short life is 
ended, though they don’t stand to examine the grounds on 
which their faith is built, nor defer their conversion till they 
have a fair opportunity and capacity to apply themselves 
to rational and learned studies. And since our adversaries 
are continually making such a stir about our taking things 
on trust,f I answer, that we, who see plainly and have 
found the vast advantage that the common people do man¬ 
ifestly and frequently reap thereby—(who make up by far 
the greater number)—I say, we (the Christian clergy), who 
are so well advised of these things, do professedly teach 
men to believe without a severe examination.” 

« 

* Surely this objection of Celsus, as allowed to have been made by him, by bis 
adversary, is a proof that he was a wise and good man, and never did or would 
have shut his mind against evidence, or have hardened his heart against conviction 
Jt is utterly impossible that such a man should have rejected Christianity, had it in 
his days possessed historical and rational evidences. 

t So! so!—So! so! And this, it seems, was the grievance from the first. The 
heathens wanted rational evidence for Christianity; but Christians could not pro¬ 
duce it! 


FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 


337 


Chapter 33.—“ I have this to say further to the Greeks, 
who won’t believe that our Saviour was born of a Virgin ; 
that the Creator of the world, if he pleases can make every 
animal bring forth its young in the same wonderful man¬ 
ner.* As for instance, the vultures which propagate their 
kind in this uncommon way, as the best writers of natural 
history do acquaint us. What absurdity is there then in 
supposing, that the all-wise God, designing to bless man¬ 
kind with an extraordinary and truly divine teacher, 
should so order matters, that our blessed Saviour should 
not be born in the ordinary way of human generation.” 

The work of Celsus, which Origen thus refutes, appears 
to have been entitled the true word, or the True 
Logos , written* at least one hundred years before the time 
of Origen. 

“ Celsus and Porphyry,” says Chrysostom, “ are suffi¬ 
cient witnesses to the antiquity of the scriptures ; for I 
presume that they did not oppose writings which had been 
published since their own times.”f This writer, however, 
chooses to forget that it is not true that we are in posses¬ 
sion of the evidence of Celsus and Porphyry. Nor would 
evidence of the antiquity of the scriptures afford any pre- 
umption that they were written by the persons to whom 
hey are ascribed ; while the presumption remains, that 
hey are actually too ancient, and were, as to their general 
tory and contents, in being before the life-time of those 
persons. 

Dr. Lardner pronounces this answer of Origen to Celsus 
“ an excellent performance, greatly esteemed and celebrat- 

* From this it should seem, that the holy Virgin laid an egg ; and that our bles¬ 
sed Saviour should rather be said to ha\e been hatched than horn. This sense is 
further supported by the express assurance of scripture, that the male agent in his 
generation, was, “ in bodily shape like a dove.”—Mark i. 10, John i, 32. Read, 
also, with awful reverence, that angelic testimony “ The Holy Ghost shall come 
upon thee , and the power of the Highest shall — emnxtaati—thee ; therefore , 
also , that holy thing (observe, it is not said zhild or babe , but that holy thing,) 
which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God.” —Luke i. 35. 
Milton describes this as the peculiar function of the Holy Spirit, who 
“ Dove-like, sat brooding on the vast abyss, 

And made it pregnant.”— Paradise Lost , Book i. 

And as it might seem in relation to this adorable mystery, the prophet Isaiah asks, 
“ Who shall declare his generation ?” Ch. liii. v. 8. I abhor no impiety more af¬ 
fectionately than that of our Unitarian divines, the most inconsistent, the most egre¬ 
gious, the most absurd of all sophists, who hesitate not at the most audacious blas¬ 
phemies upon the mystical incarnation, and persist in representing Christ as a mere. 
man, though unable to produce so much as one single proof, either scriptural oi 
historical, that any such mere man ever existed at all. 

t Lardner, vol. iv. p- 114. 

30 


338 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

ed, not only by Eusebius and Jerorn, but likewise by many 
judicious men of late times, particularly by Dupin, who 
says, that it is polite, just, and methodical ; not only the 
best work of Origen, but the completest and best written 
apology for the Christian religion, which the ancients have 
left us.” 


st. Gregory, Thawnaturgus , a. d. 243. 

Bishop of Neocmsarea. 

I cannot present the reader with fairer grounds of 
judging of the whole worth and value of the evidences of 
the Christian religion, than by laying before him what 
those evidences will require him to believe of the charac¬ 
ters and actions of the most remarkable personages con¬ 
cerned in its establishment and propagation. This I do, 
in none other than the lines and colours, the showing and 
acknowledgments, their own representations in their own 
words, not of the humbler and feebler advocates of Chris¬ 
tianity, but of such as Christians themselves with justice 
and reason boast of, as the best, discreetest and ablest, 
defenders their cause ever had. If Dr. Lardner could 
not have given a just and faithful representation of what 
the evidences of the Christian religion really were, or has 
not done so ; who on earth shall be proposed as worthier 
of all acceptation ? If on his representation it shall appea. 
that Christianity rests ultimately and strictly on miracu 
lous evidence, and on the probability of a continuous se¬ 
ries of divine interpositions and interferences of the al¬ 
mighty power of God, not merely at first to promulge, but 
afterwards to propagate and continue this supernatural 
.ntimation of his will to man; what right or reason have 
our Unitarian divines to give themselves insolent airs of 
philosophical assurance, or to affect to treat those who 
reject miraculous evidence, as if they could not do so 
without rejecting historical fact and rational probability at 
the same time ? 

St. Gregory, Bishop of Neocassarea in Pontus, was one 
of Origen’s most noted scholars. It is fit we should now 
have a more particular history of this renowned con¬ 
vert and bishop, of the best times or near them, who 
is usually called Thawnaturgus , or the Wonder-worker, 


Dupin, Bibl. Origines, p. 142. 



FATHERS OF THF THIRD CENTURY. 


339 


for the many and great rrihae’es wrought by him.* Gre¬ 
gory’s parents were Gentiles.—“ As soon as Origen saw 
Gregory (when a youth), and his brother Athenodorus, he 
neglected no means to inspire them with a love of philo¬ 
sophy, as a foundation of true religion and piety.f Of 
Origen they learned logic, physios, geometry, astronomy, 
ethics. He encouraged them in reading of all sorts ol 
ancient authors, poets, and philosophers, whether Greeks 
or barbarians, restraining them from none but such as de¬ 
nied a Deity or a Providence, from whom no possible 
advantage could be obtained.” From Gregory of Nyssa, 
in Cappadocia, who flourished about a hundred years 
after this Gregory Thaumaturgus, Dr. Lardner transcribes 
the most material things of his life. Nyssen says, that 
Gregory studied secular learning for some time at Alex¬ 
andria , where there was a great resort of youth from all 
parts for the sake of philosophy and medicine. Our young 
Gregory was even then distinguished by the sobriety and 
discretion which appeared in his conduct. “ A lewd wo¬ 
man having been employed by some idle people to dis¬ 
grace him by indirect but impudent insinuations, his 
reputation was vindicated in a remarkable manner, for 
the woman was immediately seized with such horrible 
fits, as demonstrated them to be a judgment of heaven : 
nor was she relieved from the demon that had taken pos¬ 
session of her, till Gregory had interceded with God for 
her, and obtained the pardon of her fault.” This miracle 
occurred while Gregory was yet a heathen—“ his family 
however, was rich and noble.” His ordination to the 
Christian ministry, it seems, took place even before his 
conversion to Christianity. “ Phedimus, Bishop of Amasea, 
knowing the worth of this young man, and being grieved 
that a person of such accomplishments should live useless 
in the world, was desirous to consecrate him to God and 
his church ;” but “ Gregory was shy of such a charge, and 
industriously concealed himself from the bishop, whose 

* Lardner, vol. i. p. 243. I punctiliously give the words of Lardner, that the 
render may see with what a grace this rational Socinian grapples with miracles 
which he cannot believe, and dare not deny. 

t This philosophy, which we meet with at every turn, as always constituting 
the basis of the Christian religion ; this Alexandria, always the centre and nur- 
seiy of this philosophy : these congresses of lazy pedants in universities, where 
young men are to be trained, and broken in to the business of becoming impos¬ 
tors themselves in thejr turn, are matters, at the least infinitely suspectable. Hon¬ 
esty never needed them ! Compare p. 314 and 319, in this Diegesis. Justin, 
Mel it o &c. all professors in like manner of this Eclectic philosophy. 


310 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

desiau he was aware of. At length, Phedimus, tired of 
his hairless attempts to meet Gregory, and being blessed 
with the gift of foreknowledge, consecrated him to God, 
though bodily absent, assigning him also a city which till 
that time was so addicted to idolatry, that in it, and in 
all the country round about, there were not above seven¬ 
teen believers. Gregory was then at the distance of three 
days journey. He only desired of him by whom he had 
been ordained, a short time to prepare himself for the 
office, nor had he courage to undertake the work of 
preaching, till he had been informed of the truth by reve¬ 
lation. And while he was engaged in deep meditation, 
he had a magnificent and awful vision in his chamber.” 
The Virgin Mary, and St. John the beloved disciple, ap¬ 
peared to him, u encompassed also by a bright light too 
strong for him to look upon directly. He heard these 
persons discourse together about the doctrines in which 
he desired to be informed, and he perceived who they 
were, for they called each other by name ; and the Virgin 
desired that John the Evangelist would teach that young 
man the Mystery of Piety , and he replied, that he was not 
unwilling to do what was desired by the mother of our 
Lord. John then gave the instruction he wanted, which, 
when they had disappeared, Gregory wrote down. Ac¬ 
cording to that faith he always preached ; and left it with 
his church as an invaluable treasure, by which means his 
people from that time to this, were preserved from all he¬ 
retical pravity.” 

Then follows the stupendous miracle, which I find quot¬ 
ed in Middleton’s Free Inquiry, which I here abridge as 
much as possible :— 

The holy Gregory, in travelling to take possession of 
his bishopric, was overtaken by a storm and benighted, 
eo that for shelter he was obliged to spend the night in 
one of the heathen temples ; in consequence of which, 
when the priest came to perform their idolatrous rites the 
nexi morning, “ he was answered by the demon, that he 
could no more appear in that place, because of him who 
had lodged there the foregoing night. The priest greatly 
enraged at this, pursued Gregory, and threatened to 
inform the magistrates against Mm ; but Gregory told the 
priest, that” God haci given him such divine power, that 
“ he could expel demons from any place and re-admit them 
as he saw fit : and as a demonstration of such power, he 
took a slip of paper and Wiote upon it the words 1 Gregory 


FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 341 

to Satan : Enter P This paper being laid upon the altar, 
and the accustomed Paganish rites performed, the demon 
appeared as usual ; which so convinced the Pagan priest 
of the superior power possessed by Christians, that he 
left the service of Satan, and became a minister of Jesus 
Christ, and was afterwards one of Gregory’s deacons.— 
But some doubts still remaining, Gregory wrought another 
evident miracle—at his command a large heavy stone lying 
before them, moved as if it had life, and settled itself in 
the place Gregory directed.” 

Again, there were two brothers at variance with each 
other, whom Gregory could by no means reconcile. A 
cei tain lake was the matter in dispute. When they were 
about co decide the cause by arms, Gregory went to the 
iake the night before, and at his prayers it was dried up ; 
so that ther e w as no lake left for them to contend for. 

Again :— u The river Sycus often overflowing, to the 
great damage of the neighbouring country, at the desire of 
the pecp.'e who suffered by its inundations, Gregory pre¬ 
scribed its proper limits, which it never passed afterwards.” 

u After his return to Neocsesarea, Gregory cured a young 
man possessed of a demon ; and a great many people were 
delivered from demons, and released of their diseases by 
only having a piece of linen brought to them, which had 
been breathed upon by him.” 

After these, and several other marvellous relations of 
the same sort, and some trifling objections started against 
them, it 4s of importance that the reader should be aware, 
that it is none other than the judicious and learned Dr. 
Lardner himself , who is driven to the distress of having to 
say— 

“I do not intend to deny that Gregory wrought mira¬ 
cles ; for I suppose he did, as I shall acknowledge more 
particularly by and bye. Nevertheless, there is no harm 
in making these remarks, if they are just, or in showing 
that Nyssen’s relations are defective, and want some 
tokens of credibility with which we should have been 
mightily pleased.” 

Gregory’s works are, a panegyrical oration in praise of 
Origen, pronounced in 239, still extant, and unquestion¬ 
ably his. Dupin says that it is very eloquent, and that it 
may be reckoned one of the finest pieces of rhetoric in all 
antiquity—a paraphrase of the book of Ecclesiastes, and 
that self-same creed or copy of the faith which we may 


30 * 


/ 


342 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

believe he copied immediately from the dictation of St 
John. 

“ His history, as delivered by authors of the fourth and 
following centuries, particularly by Nyssen, it is to be 
feared, has in it somewhat of fiction ; but,” adds Dr. Lard- 
ner—(yes, they are the very words of Lardner himself)— 
“ there can be no reasonable doubt made but he was very 
successful in making converts to Christianity in the coun¬ 
try of Pontiles, about the middle of the third century ; and 
that beside his natural and acquired abilities, he was 
favoured with extraordinary gifts of the spirit, and wrought 
miracles of surprising power. The plain and express testi¬ 
monies of Basil and others, at no great distance of time 
and place from Gregory, must be reckoned sufficient 
grounds of credit with regard to these things. The extra¬ 
ordinary gifts of the spirit had not then entirely ceased ; but 
Gregory was favoured with such gifts greatly beyond the 
common measure of other Christians or bishops at that 
season. Yet, as St. Jerom intimates, it is likely that he 
was more famous for his signs and wonders than his wri¬ 
tings.”* 

With respect to Gregory’s appointing anniversary festi¬ 
vals and solemnities in honour of the martyrs of his dio¬ 
cese, (as I have already given the important passage from 
Moeheim, in the chapter of Admissions,f) Dr. Lardner 
contends against it, that he is “ unwilling to take this 
particular upon the credit of Nyssen ; because this childish 
method of making converts appears unworthy of so wise 
and good a man as Gregory. Nor is it likely that those 
festivals sh*.ald ( be instituted by one who had the gift of 
miracles , and therefore a much better way of bringing men 
to religion and virtue.” See all these passages, purporting 
to be from Dr. Lardner’s immortal work on the Credibility 
of the Gospel History, in his first volume, under the article 
St. Gregory of Neocaesarea. I have selected this Life of 
Pope Gregory the Wonder-worker, not so much to show 
the picture as the painter ; and to set before my readers 
a demonstration of the important and consequential fact, 
that the ablest and most rational advocate of Christianity, 
is, in its vindication, driven on the necessity of using a 
sort of language which, on any other theme than that, he 

* His writings are not to be disparaged, since they afford the clearest evidence 
of the genuineness of his miracles, by proving that he was no conjuror . 

t See Diegesis, p. 48. 


FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 


343 


would have been ashamed of. We see the most eminent 
of all writers on the Christian evidences, driven to the 
Gocl-help-us of subscribing* to a belief in the most ridiculous 
and contemptible miracles, rather than he will accept, 
even from his own authorities, the clear and natural solu¬ 
tion of the difficulty—even that he who was ordained a 
Christian bishop, while yet he continued a Pagan, should 
have owed his success in converting others to the same 
slide-the-butcher system which had been so successfully prac¬ 
ticed on himself; that is, letting them continue Pagans all 
the while, only calling them Christians. 

From the short notice which Socrates has of this Fath¬ 
er, it should seem that the Holy Ghost was somewhat pre¬ 
mature in his gifts to Gregory, since he got possession of 
the power of working miracles before he became a convert 
to the Christian faith : “beingyet a layman, he wrought 
many miracles, he cured the sick, chased away devils by 
his epistles, and converted the Gentiles and Ethnics unto 
the faith, not only with words, but by deeds of a far greater 
force.”* 


ST. CYPRIAN, A. D. 248. 

Bishop of Carthage. 

Thascius Ccecilius Cyprianus was an African, who was 
converted from Paganism to Christianity, in the year 246, 
and suffered martyrdom in the year 258. So that the 
greatest part of his life was spent in heathenism. Cyprian 
had a good estate, which he sold and gave to the poor 
immediately upon his conversion. His advancement to 
the highest offices of the church was strikingly rapid ; 
he was made presbyter the year after Ills conversion, and 
bishop of Carthage, the year after that. And let it not 
seem invidious to state, what may be a characteristic truth , 
in the words of Dr. Lardner himself, u The estate which 
Cyprian had sold for the benefit of the poor, was ol; some 
favourable providence restored to him again. ' He was 
bishon of a most flourishing church, the metropolis o f a 
province, and neither in fame nor fortune a loser by his 
conversion. 

There can be no just grounds to disparage the renown 
of his martyrdom : which though unquestionably dis 

* Socrates Scholast. lib. 4, c. 22 



344 FATHERS OF THE THIRD CENTURY. 

graceful to the government under which it happened, was 
not attended with any of those aggravating circumstances 
of childish cruelty, which throw an air of suspicion over 
almost all the other narratives of martyrdom, that have 
come down to us. Cyprian had rendered himself obnox¬ 
ious to the government under which he had long enjoy¬ 
ed his episcopal dignity in peace and safety and it is 
impossible not to see from the intolerant turbulence of his 
character, his restless ambition, and his inordinate claims 
of more than human authority ; that more than human 
patience would have been required on the part of any 
government on earth, to have brooked the eternal claoh- 
ings of the civil administration with his assumed superior 
authority over the minds of the subjects of the empire. 
He had been twice banished, and subsequently recalled, 
and reinstated in his possessions and dignities, but again 
and again persisting in holding councils and assemblies, 
and enacting decrees, in defiance and actual solicitation of 
martyrdom, he was judicially sentenced to be beheaded, 
upon which, he exclaimed, God be thanked , and suffered 
accordingly, on the 14th of September, in the year 25S. 
As his own historians tell the tale, his execution was at 
tended with no additional circumstance of cruelty, anger, 
or indignation, but occurred amidst the sympathy of his 
Christian friends, and the admiration and regret even ol 
those whom a sense of public duty had enforced to con¬ 
demn him. “ It is needless,” says St. Jerom, “ to give a 
catalogue of his works, they are brighter thar . the sun.” 
St. Austin calls him a blessed martyr, and there can 
be no doubt that he has as good a claim, as any other 
tyrant who ever expiated his tyranny in the same way, 
to that title. 


* “ The constitution of every particular church in those times was a well-tem¬ 
pered monarchy. The bishop was the monarch, and the presbytery was his sen¬ 
ate. Principles of the Cyprianic age, by John Sage, a Scottish bishop , 
1695, p. 32. “ Cyprian carried his spiritual authority to such a pit. a, as to claim 

the right uf putting his rebellious and unruly deacon to death.”- Ibid. p. 33. 
Surely heie was cause enough to induce any government, to call s» a traitor to 
some sort of reckoning ! 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


345 


CHAPTER XLIII. 

THE FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

CONSTANTINE, A. D. 306. 

The character with whom, next to Origen, it most con¬ 
cerns the Christian inquirer to be acquainted, is the 
emperor Constantine the Great, under whose reign and 
auspices, Christianity became the established religion, 
and but for whom, as far as human probabilities can be 
calculated, it never would have come down to us. 

Constantine, called the Great, son of Flavius Vale¬ 
rius Constantius, surnamed Chlorus, and Helena, was 
born on the 27th of February, in the year of Christ 272, 
or as some think, in 273, or as others, in 274, was con¬ 
verted to the Christian religion on the night of the 26th 
of October, a. d. 312, became sole emperor both of the 
East and West, about the year 324, reigned about thirty- 
one years from the death of his father, Constantius ; and 
died on Whitsunday, May 22d, 348, # Felicianus and 
Tatian being consuls, the second year of the two hundred 
and seventy-eighth Olympiad, in the seventy-sixth year of 
his age.f 

The bearings on the evidences of the Christian religion 
demand from us—that we should inform ourselves of the 
character of this great hero of the cause, 

1. As drawn by Christian historians and divines, 

2. As appearing in the incontrovertible evidence of ad¬ 
mitted facts, 

o. The ostensible motives of his conversion, 

4. The evidences of the Christian religion as they ap¬ 
peared to him. 

I. “ I do, by no means,” says Dr. Lardner, u think that 
Constantine was a man of cruel disposition.—( p . 342.) 
Though there may have been some transactions in his 
reign which cannot be easily justified, and others that 
must be condemned : yet we are not to consider Constan 
tine as a cruel prince or a bad man.”J 

* Lardner’s Credibility, vol. ii. p. 327. 

t Socrates Scholasticus, bib. i. c. 26. 

t See my 14th letter from Oakham published in the 1st. and 2d. volumes o 
tiie Lion. 


346 FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

“ Constantine was remarkably tall, of a comely and 
majestic presence, and great bodily strength.* It may 
be concluded, from the whole tenor of his life, that he 
was a person of no mean capacity. Indeed, his mind was 
equal to his fortune, great as it was, his chastity,f togeth¬ 
er with his valour, justice, and prudence, is commended 
by a heathen panegyrist ; his many acts of bounty to the 
poor, and his just edicts, are arguments of a merciful dis¬ 
position and a love of justice. He was, moreover, a 
sincere believer of the Christian religion, of which he, 
first of all the Roman emperors, made an open profes¬ 
sion. 

“ In a word, the conversion of Constantine to Christian¬ 
ity was a favour of divine providence, and of great advan¬ 
tage to the Christians, and his reign may be reckoned a 
blessing to the Roman empire on the whole.” Thus far, 
Br. Lardner.J 

I find no directly drawn character of Constantine in the 
Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, except 
that he tells us, in general terms, that “ Constantine the 
emperor, fixing his whole mind upon such things as set 
forth the glory of God, behaved himself in all things as 
beccmeth a Christian, erecting churches from the ground, 
and adorning them with goodly and gorgeous consecrated 
ornaments : moreover, shutting up the temples of the 
Heathens, and publishing unto the world (in way of de¬ 
rision) the gay images glittering within them.”§ In his 
decrees and letters as preserved by this historian, Con¬ 
stantine entitles himself “ the puissant, the mighty, and 
noble emperor,” and in the synodical epistle of the Coun¬ 
cil of Nice, he is called “ the most virtuous emperor, the 
most godly emperor, Constantine.”|| 

The mouldering pages of the historian Evagrius, who 
had been one of the emperor’s lieutenants, are enlivened 
with a truly evangelical invective against the Ethnic Zos- 
imus, in which no better names than, u 0 wicked spirit ! 
thou fiend of hell ! 0 thou lewd varlet!” &c. are found, 
for his having dared to defame the godly and noble empe¬ 
ror, Constantine.il 

But Eusebius—who would never lie nor falsify, 
except to promote the glory of God,—the conscientious 

* “Whether Helena was the lawful wife of Consanlius Chlorus, or only his con¬ 
cubine, is a disputable point.”—Lardner, vol. ii. p. 322. 

f What has that to do with it ? t Vol. i. p. 345 

§ Socrates Sch. Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 2. || Socrates, lib. ;. c. 6 

IT Evagrius, lib. iii. c. 41. 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 347 

Eusebius Pamphilus, who has written his life, seems to 
know no bounds of exaggeration in his praise. “Iam 
amazed” (says this veracious bishop, on whose fidelity 
all our knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity must ulti 
mately depend) “lam amazed, when I contemplate such 
singular piety and goodness. Moreover, when I look up 
to heaven, and in my mind behold his blessed soul living 
in God’s presence, and there invested ( crowned ) with a 
blessed and unfading wreath of immortality ; considering 
this, I am oppressed with silent amazement, and my 
weakness makes me dumb, resigning his due encomium to 
Almighty God, who alone can give to Constantine the 
praise he merits.” 

“ Constantine alone, of all the Roman emperors, was 
beloved of God, and hath left us the idea of his most pious 
and religious life as an inimitable example for other men 
to follow, at a humble distance.”* 

u Constantine was the first of all the emperors who 
was regenerated by the new birth of baptism, and signed 
with the sign of the cross ; and being thus regenerated, 
his mind was so illuminated, and by the raptures of 
faith so transported, that he admired in himself the won¬ 
derful work of God : and when the centurions and cap¬ 
tains admitted to his presence, did bewail and mourn for 
his approaching death, because they should lose so good 
and gracious a prince, he answered them, ‘ that he now 
only began to live, and that he now only began to be 
sensible of happiness, and therefore, he now only desir¬ 
ed to hasten, rather than to slack or stay his passage to 
God.’f 

“ For he alone of all the Roman emperors did, with 
most religious zeal, honour and worship God. He alone, 
with great liberty of speech, did profess the gospel of Je¬ 
sus Christ. He alone, did honour his church more than 
all the rest. He alone, abolished the wicked adoration of 
idols ; and, therefore, he alone, both in his life and after 
his death, hath been crowned with such honours as no one 
hath obtained, neither among the Grecians nor Barbari¬ 
ans, nor in former times, among the Romans. Since no 
age hath produced any thing that might be parallelled or 
compared to Constantine.So much for hi-3 praise ! 

* The learned reader will find I take some liberties with the text, never depart¬ 
ing, however, from its sense—but, “ an inimitable example for all men to foi 
lino,” which is the literality, is Irish rather than English panegyric. 

f Life of Constantine, lib. iv. c. 63. t Ibid. lib. iv. c. 75. 


348 FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

II. u Murder , though it hath no tongue , will speak with mcsi 
miraculous organ.” 

The adulations of interested sycophants, and the 
applause of priests and bishops, will not erase the more 
convincing 1 evidence of those stubborn things, facts, that 
will not be suppressed, and cannot lie. Even Lardnsr, 
who omits entirely the circumstances of aggravation, ac¬ 
knowledges the deeds, which give a very different com¬ 
plexion to Constantine’s character, from that, which the 
honour of Christianity requires that it should wear. The 
hireling voice of priestcraft would extol him to the skies. 
Nor ought we in judging of the worth of a churchman’s 
panegyric, to forget that even the cautious and ingenuous 
Lardner, who has, without evidence of a single act of 
wrong against him, branded the amiable and matchlessly 
virtuous Julian, as a persecutor, has not one ill word to 
spare for the Christian Constantine, who drowned his 
unoffending wife, Fausta, in a bath of boiling water, be¬ 
headed his eldest son, Crispus, in the very year in which 
he presided in the Council of Nice, murdered the two hus¬ 
bands of his sisters Constantia, and Anastasia, murdered 
his own father-in-law, Maximian Herculius, murdered his 
own nephew, being his sister Constantia’s son, a boy only 
twelve years old, and murdered a few others !* which 
actions, Lardner, with truly Christian moderation, tells 
us, u seem to cast a reflection upon him.” Among those few 
others, never be it forgotten, was Sopater , the Pagan 
priest, who fell a victim and a martyr to the sincerity of 
his attachment to Paganism, and to the honesty of his re¬ 
fusing the consolations of heathenism to the conscience of 
the royal murderer. 

“ The death of Crispus, (says Dr. Lardner) is altogether 
without any good excuse ; so likewise is the death of the 
voting Licinianus, who could not then be more than a 
kittle above eleven years of age, and appears not to have 
been charged with any fault, and can hardly be suspected 
ofany.”f Then why may we not consider Constantine 

* His slaughter bill, methodically arranged, runs thus :— 

Maximian - - His wife’s father - - A. D. 310 

Bassianus - His sister Anastasia’s husband - 314 

Licinianus - - His nephew, by Constantina - - 319 

Fausta - His wife ----- 320 

Sopater - - - His former friend - - - - 321 

Licinius - His sister Constantia’s husband - 325 

Crispus - His own son ----- 326 

Religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta.— Lucret. lib. 1, v. 84. 

t Lardner, vol. 2, p. 342. 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY - . 349 

to have been either a cruel prince or a bad man ? “ Here 

then, (continues Lardner, whose work is written expressly 
to promote true piety and virtue ,) here lies the general ex¬ 
cuse, or alleviation of these faults, (peccadilloes, he means.) 
Prosperity is a dangerous state, full of temptation, and 
puts men off their guard, and all these executions happen¬ 
ed very near to one another, when Constantine was come 
as it were to the top of his fortune, and was in the great¬ 
est prosperity.”* Reader ! imagine thou seest his noble 
son imploring a father’s mercy—but in vain. Imagine 
thou seest his innocent wife supplicating for rather any 
other death at his hands than that most horrible one of 
the boiling bath—but in vain. Think that thou seest the 
poor unoffending child upon his knees, lifting his innocent 
hands to beg his life, and his most holy uncle will not 
regard him. Think that thou hearest the distracted 
shrieks of the fond doating mother, the beautiful Constan¬ 
ts, with dishevelled hair and heart-broken moans, en¬ 
treating her brother to spare her son—but in vain. Not 
a wi.e's anguish, nor a sister’s tears, nor nearest of kin¬ 
dred, nor matchless woman’s tenderness, nor guileless 
youth’s innocence, could soften the heart of this evangeli¬ 
cal cut-throat, this godly and holy child-killer. Then, 
contemplate the coin which Eusebius tells us was struck 
to perpetuate his memory, “ whereon was engraven the 
effigies of this blessed man, with a scarf bound about his 
head, on the one side, and on the other sitting and driving 
a chariot, and a hand reached down from heaven to receive 
and take him up.f” 

When one finds such a writer as Lardner, (to say 
nothing of the egregious falsifications of Eusebius) thus 
endeavouring to whitewash Constantine, because he was 
a Christian emperor, and to affix on those paragons of 
human virtue, Julian and Marcus Antonins, the guilt of 
persecution, merely because they were Pagan emperors, 
not only without evidence against them, but in conflict 
with the most irrefragible proofs that they were as clear 
from that guilt, as the sun’s disk from darkness ; it is not 
illiberal to find the only excuse we can for these historians, 
to blame their principles rather than themselves, and to 
conclude that there is something in the strength and 
intensity of their religious affection, which suspends in 


* Lardner, vol. 2, p. 343. 

t Eusebius’s Life of Constantine, book 4, chap. 73, p. 76, fol. 

3 ! 


350 FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

them the faculty of perceiving or communicating truths, so 
long as that affection is in its paroxysm.”* * * § 

It is however highly honourable to Lardner, that he has 
the generosity to speak in terms of less qualified censure 
of Constantine’s intolerance, and to admit that the two 
prevailing evils of his reign, were avarice and hypocrisy.f 
“ The laws of Constantine against the heathens,” he 
acknowledges, u are not to be justified. How should Con¬ 
stantine have a right to prohibit all his subjects from sac¬ 
rificing and worshipping at the temples ? Would he have 
liked this treatment, if some other prince had become a 
Christian at that time, and he still remained a heathen ? 
What reason had he to think that all men received light 
and conviction when he did ? And if they were not con¬ 
vinced, how could he expect that they should act as he 
did.”} 

Monsieur Le Clerc justly observes, that 4c they that 
continued heathens were no doubt extremely shocked at 
the manner in which the statues of their gods were treated, 
and could not consider the Christians as men of modera¬ 
tion ; for in short, those statues were as dear to them, as 
any thing the most sacred could be to the Christians.§ 

In the form and wording of several of Constantine’s 
edicts, we have specimens of that conjunction of holiness 
and blood-thirstiness, religion and murder, which pour- 
trays his character with a precision and fidelity that needs 
no further illustration. 

1. u Constantine the puissant , the mighty and noble emperor , unto 
the bishops , pastors , and people wheresoever . 

“ Moreover we thought good, that if there can he found 
extant any work or book compiled by Arius, the sfime 
should be burned to ashes, so that not only his damnable 
doctrine may thereby be wholly rooted out, hut also that 
no relic thereof may remain unto posterity. This also we 
straightly command and charge, that if any man be found 
to hide or conceal any book made by Arius, and not 
immediately bring forth the said book, and deliver it up 
to be burned, that the said offender for so doing shall die 
the death. For as soon as he is taken, our pleasure is, 

* See this deduction illustrated in a succession of the Author’s letters from Oak¬ 

ham, in “ The Lion,” vol. 1. 

t Lardner’s Credibility, vol. 2, p. 345 t Ibid. p . 344 

§ Bibl. Univ. t. 15, p. 54. 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


351 


that his head be stricken off from his shoulders. God keep 
you in his tuition.”* * * § 

Constantine's speech in the council concerning peace and concord. 

2. u Having by God’s assistance, gotten the victory over 
mine enemies, l entreat you therefore, beloved ministers 
of God, and servants of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
to cut off the heads of this hydra of heresy, for so shall ye 
please both God and me.”f 

III. motives of Constantine’s conversion. 

Jls say his friends. 

u Constantine the Emperor, being certified of the tyran¬ 
nous government of Maxentius, devised with himself 
which way possibly he might rid the Romans from under 
this grievous yoke of servitude, and despatch the tyrant 
out of life. Deliberating thus with himself, he forecasted 
also what God , he were best to call upon for aid, to wage 
battle with the adversary. He remembered how that 
Diocletian who wholly dedicated himself unto the service 
of the heathenish Gods, prevailed nothing thereby ; also 
he persuaded himself for certain, that his father Con¬ 
stantins, who renounced the idolatry of the Gentiles, led a 
more fortunate life 4 musing thus doubtfully with himself, 
and taking his journey with his soldiers, a certain vision 
appeared unto him, as it was strange to behold, so indeed 
incredible to be spoken of. About noon, the day some¬ 
what declining, he saw in the sky, a pillar of light, in the 
form of a cross, whereon was engraved the inscription, 
c In this overcome .’ This vision so amazed the emperor, 
that he, mistrusting his own sight, demanded of them that 
were present, whether they perceived the vision, which 
when all with one consent had affirmed, the wavering 
mind of the Emperor, was settled with that divine and 
wonderful sight. The night following, Jesus Christ him¬ 
self appeared to him, in his sleep, saying— 1 Frame to thy¬ 
self the form of a cross after the example of the sign which appear¬ 
ed unto thee, and bear the same against thy enemies as aft banner , 
or token of victory. 1 ”§ 

* In Socrates Scholasticus, lib. 1, c. 6, fol. p. 227. 

fEuseb. Vita Const, lib. 3, c. 12. 

j; Compare this with thp apology of Melito ; and the result is, a demonstration 
that good or ill luck was all that turned the scale between the claims of Christianity 
and of Paganism.—D iegesis, p. 320. 

§ Socrates Eccl. Hist. lib. l,c. 1. It is to be regretted that these words o- 
Christ have not been received into the canon of the i\ew Testament, as it is cer 
tain there are none therein contained, of higher authority. 


352 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


But let us hear the account of “ that lewd varlet,” 
“ that wicked spirit and fiend of hell,”* as Socrates calls 
him, the Ethnic Zosimus, who dared to revile Constantine, 
and rail at Christians. These fiends of hell make none 
the worse historians, but always contrive to give an air 
of rational probability to their infernal falsehoods, which 
divine truth (being written solely to exercise our faith) 
could never pretend to— u This lewd varlet goeth about 
to defame the godly and noble emperor Constantine, for 
he saith, that he slew his son Crispus very lamentubly ; 
that he despatched his wife Fausta, by shutting her up in 
a boiling bath ; that when he would have had his priest 
to purge him by sacrifice, of these horrible murthcrs, and 
could not have his purpose, (for they had answered plain¬ 
ly, it lay not in their power to cleanse him), he light¬ 
ed at last upon an Egyptian who came out of Iberia, and 
being persuaded by him that the Christian faith was of 
force to wipe away every sin, were it never so heinous, 
he embraced willingly all whatever the Egyptian told 
him.”f 

Lardner says this is a false and absurd story ; and to 
make it appear to be so, he renders the text of Zosimus, 
without supplying it as usual at the bottom of his page, 
as if it had ran, that “ Constantine being conscious to him¬ 
self of those bad actions, and also of the breach of oaths,;j: 
and being told by the priests of his old religion, that there 
was no kind of purgation sufficient to expiate such enor¬ 
mities, he began to hearken to a Spaniard, named iEgyp- 
tius, then at Court, who assured him that the Christian 
doctrine contained a promise of the pardon of all manner 
of sin.” 

I suspect Dr. Lardner’s copy of Zosimus of a menda¬ 
cious substitution of the words which he renders u a Spa- 
niard named JEgyptius , then at Court” instead of those ac¬ 
knowledged in the independent and hostile quotation oi 
Socrates, “ that “ he met an Egyptian coming out of Iberia , 
in order to keep in the back ground, as much as possible, 

* Socrates, lib. 3, c. 40, 41. When we hear language of this sort, we may be 
sure that somebody has been telling the truth. Consult that holy blackguard, 
the Reverend Dr. J. P. S. and his Rejoinder, for the character of the Author. 
Billingsgate surrenders the honours of the fish-market, to the transcendent ruffian¬ 
ism of the college. 

t Ibid. lib. 3, c. 40.—See also the original text of Zosimus to this effect, given 
in my “ Syntagma,” p. 112. 

t The holy emperor had bound himself by the most solemn oaths to protect Li- 
cinius, but slew him notwithstanding. He had the example of the man after God’s 
own heart to justify this peccadillo, 1 Kings, ii. 8, 9. 


FATHERS OF TIIE FOURTH CENTURY. 353 

the startling denouement of historical fact, that Christianity 
is really not of Jewish, but of Egyptian derivation.* As 
for its absurdity, they should not throw stones who live in 
houses of glass. 

Sozomen has a whole chapter on purpose to confute such 
accounts of Constantine’s conversion ; in which he admits 
(which one would think were admission enough,) that the 
emperor made some such application to a Pagan priest of 
the name of Sopater, who had been his faithful friend : 
but that Sopater refused to administer spiritual consola¬ 
tion, asserting that the purity of the gods admitted of no 
compromise with crimes like his. Whereupon, Constantine 
applied to the bishops of Christianity, “ who promised him 
that by repentance and baptism they could cleanse him 
from all sin ;”f taking into the reckoning, we must suppose, 
the sin (if a sin they held it to be) of murdering poor So¬ 
pater, the Pagan priest ; whom, upon his conversion to 
the Christian faith, Constantine took care to have put to 
death. 

It is from the arguments which his best friends and most 
zealous advocates advance in his favour, and the pitiful 
chicane with which they feebly attempt to conflict with 
the facts which his enemies, or rather the impartial docu¬ 
ments of history allege, against him, that we gather a true 
knowledge of the character of the first Christian emperor 

Thus the learned Christian historian Pagi, with equa. 
humanity and orthodoxy, affects to repel every accusation 
that the tongue of slander might object against this holy 
emperor :—“ As for those few murders, if Eusebius had 
thought it worth his while to refer to them, he would per¬ 
haps, with Baronius himself have said, that the young 
Licinius (his infant nephew), although the fact might not 
generally have been known, had most likely been an ac¬ 
complice in the treason of his father. That as to the 
murder of his son, the emperor is rather to be considered 
as unfortunate than as criminal. And with respect to his 
putting his wife to death, he ought to be pronounced 
rather a just and righteous judge. As for his numerous 
friends, whom Eutropius informs us he put to death one 
after another, we are bound to believe that they most of 

* Compare with Chap. 29, The Sign of the Cross, in this Diegesis, p. 19S. 

\Tavrct (fvvsniOTauerog tavru), xai n^ootriys oqxwv xaTatpQovijdetg, nQoOtjtt 
rotg teyevoi xu&a(JOiu aiTov. — Zosimus. y/Stjuovovvra $s rov paoiXtu ent tij 
omayoUBvati, m^trvytiv Entaxonotg , oi f/eravoiec xat pct7iTlOfiitji untoj^ovjo. 
JIuotjg uvxov apaonag xaOaiyav .— Sozomen. 


354 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY, 


them deserved it, as they were found out to have abused 
the emperor’s too great credulity , for the gratification of 
their own inordinate wickedness, and insatiable avarice : 
and such no doubt was that Sopater the philosopher, 
who was at last put to death upon the accusation of Ad- 
labius, and that by the righteous dispensation of God, foi 
his having attempted to alienate the mind of Constantine 
from the true religion.”* Dr. Lardner quotes this impor¬ 
tant passage in his notes, for the benefit of the learned 
reader, but gives no rendering into English of the most 
important clause in it: which I have here supplied. 

We have horrors on horrors in detail of martyrdoms in 
the cause of Christianity—here was a martyr in the cause 
of Paganism, of whom, as of millions whom Christians 
massacred, it was considered a sufficiently fair account 
either with Lardner to think their cases utterly unworthy 
of notice, or with Pagi to assume, that they had their 
throats cut and their property turned over to the faithful, 
by the just dispensations of God upon them for not being 
of the emperor’s religion. One’s heart smarts at the 
unfeeling exultation of Eusebius over the cold-blooded 
massacres of Pagans, who, he tells us, u as they formerly 
reposed an insolent vain hope in their false gods, so now, 
upon being executed and put to death according to their 
desert, they truly understood how great and admirable the 
God of Constantine was.”f The war against Constantine 
he throughout assumes to be, and expressly calls “ The 
war against God”\ 

* De csedibus autem si rationem in patticulari reddere voluisset, dixisset forsitan 
cum ipso Baronio, Licinium juniorem ex sorore Constantia natum, etsi causa vulgo 
ignoraretur, verosimiliter tamen complicem patri suo fuisse : In Crispo filio, infeli- 
cem magis quarn reurn : In Fausta conjuge, etiam justum judicem appellandum : 
Numerosos amicos quos successive interfectos scribit Eutropius, lib. 10, credendum, 
plerosque id commeritos, quod nirnia principis credulitate tandem deprehenderentur 
abusi ob suam exuberantem malitiam et insatiabilem cupiditatem. Qualis procul- 
duhio fuit Sop ater ille philosophus, tandem Adlabio agente, interfectus, idque 
justa Dei dispensatione quia Constantinum conatus a vera religione abalienare. — 
Pagi, Ann. 324, n. 12, quoted by Lardner , vol. 4, p. 371. We cannot have 
this fact stated with too great precision. I therefore copy it asto'd again in another 
passage, which Dr. Lardner renders thus from Sozomen : “ I am not ignorant that 
the Gentiles are wont to say, that Constantine having put to death some of his rela¬ 
tions, and particularly his son Crispus, and being sorry for what he had done, ap¬ 
plied to Sop ater the philosopher, and he answering, that there were no expia¬ 
tions for such offences, the emperor then had recourse to the Christian bishops, who 
told him that by repentance and baptism he might be cleansed from all sin : with 
which doctrine he was well pleased, whereupon he became a Christian.— Lardner , 
vol. 4, p. 400. It was never on the score of being a superior code of morality that 
Christianity could compete with Paganism. 

fin Vita Constantine, lib. 2, c. 18 


t Ibid. 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 355 

IV.— The evidences of Christianity as they appeared to Constant 

tine. 

Nothing 1 can be more relevant to our great investigation, 
than a view of the evidences of Christianity as presented 
to the mind of the royal convert. Without passing any 
judgment on his character, or casting any reflections on 
Christianity from a consideration of the motives which 
were likely to induce such a man to become its convert, we 
are to remember that Constantine was not a disciple merely, 
but also a preacher of the Christian religion ; and has left 
us the whole apparatus of argument, upon the strength of 
which, he not only became a Christian himself, but which 
he held sufficient to convince the reason, and command 
the faith of all other persons. 

It is not possible that Christianity should ever have 
possessed evidence of any sort to which Constantine could 
have been a stranger. 

It falls not within the measure of conceivable probabili¬ 
ties, that so clever a man as Constantine unquestionably 
was, setting himself in an assembly of all the distinguished 
Christian clergy of his age and empire, to deliver an ora¬ 
tion expressly on the evidences of the Christian religion , should 
therein, have omitted all reference to its greatest and 
grandest testimonies, and have dwelt only on such as were 
equivocal or nugalory : neither will conceit itself endure 
the supposition, that Christianity can, since his day, have 
acquired any increase of evidence, so that it should be 
possible for us of later times to have other and better rea¬ 
sons for believing it than our forefathers had, or that that 
which was less certain at first, should become more certain 
afterwards. 

An attempt to give the substance of so egregious a 
rhapsody of mystical jargon as his oration to the clergy, 
would be only less egregious than the rhapsody itself. Let 
the reader suppose himself to have got through the ten 
first sections of it; and here begins the eleventh of 

Constantine’s Oration to the Clergy. 

“But I intend to prosecute the eternal aecree and pur¬ 
pose of God, concerning the restoration of man’s corrupted 
life, not ignorantly, as many do, neither trusting to opin¬ 
ion or conjecture. For, as the Father is the cause of the 
Son, so the Son is begotten of that cause who had existence 
oefore all things, as we have demonstrated. But how did 


358 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


he descend to men on earth ? This, was out of his own 
determinate will, because, as the prophets had foretold, he 
had a general care of all men. For needs must the Work¬ 
man have a care of his work. But when he came into the 
world, by assuming a bodily presence, and was to stay 
and converse some time on earth, for so the work of man’s 
salvation required, he found a way of birth different from 
the common birth of men, for there was a conception with¬ 
out a marriage, a birth without a.; while a 

virgin was the mother of God. The divine essence, which 
before was only intelligible, was now become comprehen¬ 
sible : and incorporeal divinity was now united unto a 
material body. He was like the dove which flew out of 
Noah’s ark, and rested at length on a virgin’s bosom.* 
After his birth, the wonderful wisdom and providence of 
God protected him even from his cradle. The river Jordan 
was honoured with his baptism ;f he had the royal unc¬ 
tion besides ; by his doctrine and divine power he wrought 
miracles, and healed incurable diseases. Chap. 12. We 
give thee all possible thanks, O Christ, our God and Sa¬ 
viour, the wisdom of the Father. Chap. 15. Moreover, 
we certainly know that the Son of God became a master to 
instruct the wise in the doctrine of salvation, and to invite 
all men to virtue, that he called unto him honest industri¬ 
ous men, and instructed them in modesty of life, and that 
he taught them faith and justice, which are repugnant to 
the envy of their adversary the devil, who desireth to en¬ 
snare and deceive the ignorant. He also forbiddeth lord- 
ship and dominion4 and showeth that he came to help 
the meek and humble. This is heavenly and divine wis¬ 
dom, that we should rather suffer injury than do any, and 
when necessary we should rather receive loss than do 
another any wrong :§ for, seeing it is a great fault to do 
any injury,|| not he that suffers it, but' he that doth the in¬ 
jury, shall receive the greatest punishment.1T This, in my 
opinion, is the firm basis of faith.” 

* I sincerely admire the dove’s taste, and envy him his roost but where did he 
find the virgin, when every body was drowned ? or where did Constantine find the 
story ? 

t Query : Was he baptized to wash away his sins, or for what ? 

t Compare this with the titles and honours which Constantine himself arrogated 
at that very time : and see another proof that from first to last, it was never 
inderstood that the moral precepts of Christ were so much as intended to be 
beyed ; nobody sets them so much at defiance as the most zealous believers them¬ 
selves. 

§ Rise ! II Rise ! 

IT Rise ghosts of Fausta, Crispus and Licinius ! ! 



FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


357 


Chap. 13. u Here we must needs mention a certain 
testimony of Christ’s divinity, fetched from those who were 
aliens and strangers from the faith. For those who con- 
tuineliouslv detract from him, if thev will give credence to 
their own testimonies, may sufficiently understand thereby 
that he is both v God and the Son of God. For the 
Erythraean Sibyl, who lived in the sixth age after the Hood, 
being a priestess of Apollo, did yet, by the power of 
divine inspiration , prophecy of future matters that were to 
come to pass concerning God; and, by the first letters , which 
is called an acrostic, declared the history of Jesus. The 
acrostic is, Jesus Christus , J)ei Filins , Senator , Crux.* And 
these things came into the Virgin’s mind by inspiration , 
and by way of prophecy. And therefore I esteem her 
happy whom our Saviour did choose to be a prophetess, 
to divine and foretell of his providence towards us.” 

The royal preacher proceeds in the next chapter to re¬ 
prove the incredulity of those who doubt the genuineness 
of this sublime doggerel. 

u But the truth of the matter,” he continues, “ doth 
manifestly appear; for our writers have with great study 
so accurately compared the times, that none can suspect 
that this poem was made and came forth after Christ’s 
coming; and, therefore, they are convicted of falsehood 
who blaze abroad, that these verses were not made by the 
Sibyl. 

And then follows Chapter 20, entitled “ Other verses 
of A T irgil concerning Christ, in which under certain vails 

* It is thus accurately versified into English by ihe translator Wye Salton 
■tall : 

I n that time, when the great Judge shall come, 

E artli shall sweat; the Eternal King frorn’s throne 
S hail judge the world, and all that in it be, 

U nrighteous men and righteous, shall <Jod see 
Seated on high with saints elernall-EE. 

C ompassed, which in the last age have been 

II cure snail the earth grow desolate again 

11 egardless statues and gold shall he held vain 
1 n greedv names shall burn earth seas and skies, 

S tand up again dead bodies shall, and rise, 

T hat they may see all these with their eyes. 

C leansing the faithful in twelve fountains, He 
R eign shall for ever unto eternitee, 

V erv (iod that he is, and our Saviour too, 

X hrist that did suffer for us—and I hope that'll do! 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


358 

(as poets use) this knotty mystery is set forth;” and to 
be sure, the fourth Bucolic of Virgil: commencing 

Sicelides rnusjje paulo majora. canarrms ; 

(than which, the power of imagination could hardly jump 
further away from all relation to any thing of the kind) 
is quoted as the ultimate proof and main evidence ol the 
Christian revelation. 


The amount of evidence then, for the Christian reli¬ 
gion in the fourth century, as lar as evidence influenced 
the mind of the most illustrious convert it could ever 
boast, was the Sibylline verses, now on all hands ad¬ 
mitted to be a Christian forgery; and a mystical inter¬ 
pretation arbitrarily put on an eclogue of Virgil, which 
neither the poet himself, nor any rational man on earth, 
ever dreamed of charging with such an application. There 
is not one of all the thbusand-and-orie Arabian Nights’ 
Entertainments, which with an equal licence of applica¬ 
tion might not be shown to be as relevant and prophetical 
as this. 

Surely we had a right to expect from Constantine, that 
if evidence to the historical facts on which the gospel 
rests its claims, existed, he was the man who should have 
been acquainted with it;—this was the occasion on which 
it should have been brought forward. Nor are we to be 
put oil' with the old fox’s apology—that the grapes are sour , 
and that Constantine’s testimony would have reflected 
no honour on Christianity. Who, of all the whole human 
race could better have known the fact, or with greater 
propriety have given a certificate of it, had it been .true 
that such a person as Jesus Christ had sullcred an igno¬ 
minious death under one of his predecessors in the Roman 
empery ? Who, should have adduced the admission of 
Josephus, the testimony of Phlogon, the passage of- 
Tacitus, nor these alone, if in his day they had existed, 
but ten thousand times their evidence, or (what would 
have been equipollent to that) should have produced the 
sign manual of Pontius Pilate, or the register itself of 
persons put to death under his viceroyalty, but Constan¬ 
tine, into whose hands they must have lineally descended? 
Constantine could not have been igru rant of their exist¬ 
ence if any man on earth had known of it, and could not 
have failed of adducing them, had he known of them him¬ 
self: and if he had known and adduced them, he would 



FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 3 59 

lmve silenced the objections of millions of infidels: and. 
if infidelity be a damnable sin, would have saved millions 
from damnation? Surely it was any thing rather than 
such a palpable forgery as the Sibylline verses, or such 
infatuate irrelevancy as a heathen eclogue, that we should 
have a right to see assigned as a demonstration of the 
truth of the Christian religion! We wanted not allegories, 
nor mystifications, but the plain matter-of-fact evidence, 
which might have excused a man to himself as a rational 
being, in believing. Where is that evidence? Where 
the plausibility, the seeming, the shadow of an historical 
fact?—in heaven?—in hell?—in Probdignag! ? Tis no¬ 
where upon earth. Then rail at us, ye consecrated suc¬ 
cessors of Constantine! Persecute us, ye lawyers! De¬ 
nounce us, ye hypocrites! Curse us all yc priests! Rail, 
rant, and roar for it:—but never talk of evidence! 


EUSEBIUS, A. D. 315. 

There is no name in Ecclesiastical History of equal im¬ 
portance with this: no character with whom it so vitally 
concerns, every rational man to be thoroughly acquainted, 
no individual of the whole human race, on whose single re¬ 
sponsibility, ever hung so vast a weight of consequence. 
If Eusebius be to be numbered with wise and good men, the 
strength of his wisdom and the sincerity of his virtue, are 
sterling gold to the value of the Evidences of the Chris¬ 
tian religion. If he be found wanting, just in so much 
wanting must be the credibility of so much of the Chris¬ 
tian evidence as rests upon his testimony, arid that is, all 
but the all of it. “ Without Eusebius,” says the learned 
Tillemont, “ we should scarce have had any knowledge 
of the history of the first ages of Christianity, or of the 
authors who wrote in that time. All the Greek authors 
of the fourth century who undertook to write the history 
of the church, have begun where Eusebius ended, as 
having nothing considerable to add to his labours.” 

He was born, as is generally thought, at Caesarea in 
Palestine, about the year 270. We have no account of 
his parents, or who were his instructors in early life; nor 
is there any thing certainly known of his family and re¬ 
lations. He is called Pamphilus , only in honour of his 
very particular friendship for the martyr of that name, 
who had been a presbyter of the church in which Ease 



360 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 


bius succeeded Agassius as bishop, in the year 315 
The name Eusebius is one of that order which learned 
men have generally claimed to themselves, and been 
allowed to hold, either as expressive of the characters 
they sustained, or to conceal the meanness and obscurity 
of their parentage, such as our Pelagius, for Morgan; 
Calvin, for Chauvin ; Melancthon, for Black earth , &c. 
Eusebius, literally signifies, one who is correctly religious. 

There have been several of this name, but none of the 
same age and character, with whom he is so likely to be 
confounded, as his contemporary, and brother by courtesy , 
Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia,—who calls our Eusebius 
his Lord. They were entire friends, and so intimate 
that they were both of the same opinion upon the Arina 
controversy as agitated in the council of Nice, which 
was held in the year 325, and in which our Eusebius 
bore a most distinguished part. 

Eusebius Pamphilus was Bishop of Caesarea from the 
year 315 to the year 340, in which he died, in the 70th 
year of his age, thus playing his great part in life chiefly 
under the reigns of Constantine the Great and his son 
Constantins. He is the great ecclesiastical historian, with 
whom alone it is our concern to be especially acquainted. 
Ye little Eusebiuses hide your diminished heads! 

His works bear testimony to a character of very great 
ability, of extraordinary diligence, and of an esprit-du- 
corps , or high-church passion that absorbed every other 
feeling, and would have induced him, as it did many 
others, to sacrifice not only life, but truth itself, to the 
paramount claims of the church’s interests. St. Jerome 
gives a catalogue of his works, which consisted of 15 
Books of Evangelical Preparation —as preparatives for 
such as were to learn the doctrine of the gospel. (So far 
was this great historian from apprehending that there 
was sufficient historical evidence to command any man’s 
rational conviction, without a preparatory discipline—a 
breaking-in of the obstinacy of reason and common- 
sense, and u bringing down every high thought to the 
obedience of faith;”)—then, followed his 20 books of Evan¬ 
gelical Demonstration , in which he proveth and confirmeth 
the doctrine of the New Testament with a confutation of 
the devil; then five books on the Divine Apparition ten 

* Or Theophany, that is, “ the shining forth of God.;" a conceit, which con¬ 
ceit itself could hardly have dreamed of, as a definition of the life and adven¬ 
tures of the son of a frail girl of Nazareth—the hero of the gimlet, “ O, it out- 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 361 

'looks of Ecclesiastical History , by far the most important 
and valuable, as it is also the most defective of his 
writings—a general recital of Chronical Canons with an 
Epitome of the same ; a treatise on the Discrepancy of the 
Evangelists. 

Ten books of Commentary upon the prophet Isaiah. 

A Commentary on the 150 Psalms. 

Three books on the Life of his friend Pamphilus. 

Six books in Defence of Origen. 

Thirty books against Porphyry. 

Eight books against Hierocles. 

Four books of the Life of Constantine. 

Books on JMartyrology. 

On Fatal Destiny. 

Three books against Marcellus , who had been bishop of 
Ancyra in Galatia, and deposed upon suspicion of heresy 
about a. d. 320. 

One book on Topics , and perhaps others innumerable, 
which nobody reads, nor would be the wiser for reading. 
His style, however, is in general good, and his Greek, very 
fluent and easy reading. 

He has been accused by some of criminal time-serving, 
and of sacrificing to the gods to subserve some temporal 
purpose of his own, but not, indeed, on any satisfactory 
evidence of the fact. His Life of Constantine , however, is 
an incontrovertible demonstration against him ; that he 
never let a regard for truth stand in his way to preferment, 
that he was a consummate sycophant, and that no man 
better understood, or more successfully practised, the 
courtly arts of standing well with the powers that be. 

Petavius places Eusebius among Arians, and the learned 
Cave allows that “ there are many unwary and dangerous 
expressions in his writings. He subscribed the Nicene 
creed as he would have subscribed any other, though 
contrary to his convictions :* and to the sense of his 
writings both before and after that Council.”f On which, 
Dr. Lardner affectedly remarks, that u it is grievous to 
think, f ir better had it been that the bishops of that coun¬ 
cil nad never met together, than that they should have 

Heiod’s Herod !” All other divines endeavour to subdue our reason,—the assert- 
ersof the humanity of Christ insult it. 

* Like our own Archdeacon Paley, “ he could not afford to have a con¬ 
science.” See his Life prefixed to his Evidences of Christianity. 

t Like our Archbishop Magpe, “ he might have believed it in the lump, without 
believing it in the particular.”— See his Evidence before the House of Lords. 

32 


362 . FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

tempted and prevailed upon a Christian bishop, or any one 
else, to prevaricate and act against conscience.” 

“ This author was a witness of the sufferings of the 
Christians,” says l)r. Lardner, “ in the early part of his 
life, and afterwards saw the splendor of the Church, under 
the first Christian Emperor. Like most other great men, 
he has met with good report and ill report; his learning, 
however, has been universally allowed.” u It appears, 
(says Tillemont) from his works, that he had read all 
sorts of Greek authors, whether philosophers, historians, 
or divines, of Egypt, Phoenicia, Asia, Europe and Africa.” 
“ With a very extensive knowledge of literature (contin¬ 
ues Dr. Lardner), he seems to have had the agreeable 
accomplishments of a courtier. He was both a bishop and 
a man of the world ; a great author and a fine speaker. We 
plainly perceive from his writings, that through the 
whole course of his life, he was studious and dili¬ 
gent, insomuch that it is wonderful how he should have 
had leisure to write so many large and elaborate works 
of different kinds, beside the discharge of the duties of 
his function, and beside his attendance at Court, at 
Synods, and the solemnities of dedicating churches. He 
was acquainted with all the great and learned men of his 
time, and had access to the libraries of Jerusalem and 
Ceesarea ; which advantage he improved to the utmost. 
Some may wish that he had not joined with the Arian 
leaders in the hard treatment that was given to Eustatius, 
Bishop of Antioch, Athanasius of Alexandria, and Marcel¬ 
los of Ancyra. But it should be considered, that 
Christian bishops in general, after the conversion of Con¬ 
stantine, seem to have thought, that they had a right to 
depose and banish all ecclesiastics who did not agree with 
them upon the points of divinity controverted at that 
time. Finally though there may be some things excep¬ 
tionable in his writings and conduct ; his zeal for the 
Christian religion, his affection for the martyrs, his grate¬ 
ful respect for his friend Pamphilus—his diligence in col¬ 
lecting excellent materials, and in composing useful works 
for the benefit of mankind ; his caution and scrupulous¬ 
ness in not vouching for the truth* of Constantine’s story of 
the apparition of the cross, as well as other things, fully 

* But surely this lying by proxy, is but a more sneaking and cowardly way 
of lying : he knew that the falsehood was asserted, and profited by the falsehood 
He lent his influence to it, and subscribed it with the consent of a criminal 
tHence ' 


FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 363 

satisfy me, notwithstanding what some may say , that he was a 
good as well as a great man.”* 

Du Pin says “ that Eusebius seems to have been very 
disinterested, very sincere, a great lover of peace, of truth, 
and religion. Though he had close alliances with the 
enemies of Athanasius, he appears not to have been his 
enemy ; nor to have any great share in the quarrels of the 
bishops of that time. He was present at the councils 
where unjust things were transacted, but we do not dis¬ 
cern that he showed signs of passion himself, or that he 
was the tool of other men’s passions. He was not the 
author of new creeds—he only aimed to reconcile and re¬ 
unite parties. He did not abuse the interest he had with 
the Emperor, to raise himself, nor to ruin his enemies, as 
did Eusebius of Nicomedia, but he improved it for the 
benefit of the church.” Such is his character, as drawn 
by his advocates and friends, a character unfortunately 
pregnant with admissions of enough, and more than 
enough, to justify the charges of Baronins and others, 
sincere professors of the Christian faith, who have brand¬ 
ed him as the great falsifier of ecclesiastical history, a wily 
sycophant, a consummate hypocrite, and a time-serving 
persecutor. Indeed, there is no fair evidence in any thing 
that appears in his writings, or is known of his life, to 
support our wish, for the honour of human nature, to be¬ 
lieve that he himself believed the Christian religion. Had 
he done so, can we think that he would have deemed it 
necessary to promote that cause by forgery and imposture, 
by trickery and falsehood, as he has constantly endeavour¬ 
ed to do ? 

“ He had a great zeal for the Christian religion,” says 
Dr. Lardner, and so far, undoubtedly, he was in the right, 
nevertheless he should not have attempted to support it 
by weak and false arguments. “ It is wonderful,” he adds, 
“ that Eusebius should think Philo’s Therapeutm were 
Christians, and that their ancient writings, should be our 
gospels and epistles. 

“Agbarus’s letter to our Saviour, and our Saviour’s let 
ter to Agbarus, copied at length in our author’s Ecclesias¬ 
tical History, are much suspected by many learned men 
not to be genuine. 

“ If the testimony to Jesus as the Christ, had been from 
the beginning in Josephus’s works, it is strange it should 
never have been quoted by ancient apologists for Chris 

* Lardner, Vol. 2, p. 363. 


364 FATHERS OF THE FOURTH CENTURY. 

tianity, and now in the beginning of the fourth century 
be thought so important as to be quoted by our author in 
two of his works still remaining.” That is to say, surely 
Eusebius forged it himself! for the purpose of quoting his 
own forgery. There was never an advocate of the Chris¬ 
tian evidences yet, whose conscience would have opposed 
any hesitation to such services, in so good a cause. 

“ There is a work ascribed to Porphyry, quoted by Eu¬ 
sebius in his Preparation and Demonstration. If that work 
is not genuine (and I think it is not) it was a forgery of 
his own time, and the quoting it as he does, will be reck¬ 
oned an instance of want of care or skill, or of candour and 
impartiality.” 

“ Where Josephus says that Agrippa, casting his eyes 
upwards, saw an owl sitting upon a cord over his head ; 
our ecclesiastical historian says, he saw an angel. I know 
not what good apology can be made for this.” 

So delicately does Dr. Lardner glance at the peccadil¬ 
loes of the great Christian historian : to say nothing of 
his entirely passing over the altogether Popish character of 
the religion he professed ; the masses said for the soul of 
Constantine, his own fulsome panegeric on that great 
monster of iniquity, and the innumerable instances of de¬ 
ceit and cunning which will be found by every shrewd 
student of his writings. 

Eusebius held that Jesus Christ created the substance 
of the Holy Ghost, and ridiculously, or rather perhaps sar¬ 
castically, hints that miracles were still in vogue, even in 
his own time, only they were little ones. 

His adducing, however, of the authority of the elders 
of the churches of Lyons and Vienne, without directly 
pledging his own authority, to obtain belief from who¬ 
ever would believe the stories of the martyrdoms of the 
saints of those churches, and of some whose bodies 
were actually found alive and uninjured in the stomachs 
of the wild beasts who had devoured them,* is proof enough 
of his art in supplying miracles adapted to the meanest 
capacity, and a grand specimen of that peculiarly eccle 
siastical finesse, in which Dr. Lardner himself is an 
exquisite proficient ; the contriving to reap the effect of 
falsehood, without incurring its responsibilities, lying by 
proxy , and pushing what they never believed them¬ 
selves into credence, as far as credence would follow, 
without committing themselves in any sufficiently honest 

* Lardner’s Credibility, Vpl. 4, p. 91. 


HERETICS. 


365 


expression to enable a man to lay the blame of it directly 
at their own door. Thus also, the grave and solemn Ter- 
tullian assures us of a fact which he and all the ortho¬ 
dox of his time credited, that the body of a Christian 
which had been some time buried, moved itself to one 
side of the grave to make room for another corpse which 
ivas going to be laid by it.* We have no less credible 
accounts of a holy dog , who used to slide along on his 
haunches to receive the sacrament, and to watch over the 
church-yard like a guardian angel, and when he saw any 
other dogs about to ease themselves upon the graves of 
the saints, he would instantly set on them, and teach 
them to go further. He was actually canonized by the 
Bishop of Rome, and many splendid and glorious miracles 
were wrought at the shrine cf the Holy Dog, St. Towzer.f 

Saint Augustin, in like manner, preached the Gospel to 
whole nations of men and women, who he assures us had 
no heads.—Query, could he mean any thing else than 
that, in believing the gospel, men and women have no 
need of heads. In a word, 

Eusebius, like many other great men was drawn into 
the frightful vortex of superstition, and had no alterna¬ 
tive but to whirl round in it, or sink. Like thousands of 
his order at this day, he both preached and wrote what 
he never believed himself, nor could believe. It is only 
when Religion shall be no more, that Hypocrisy shall be 
no more: as it is, there is but one rule in theological 
arithmetic— i. e. the greater saint, the greater liar! 


CHAPTER XLIV. 

TESTIMONY OF HERETICS. 

The only definition that will express the distinction 
between orthodoxy and heresy, is, that the orthodox 
party are those who have the upper hand, the heretics are 
those who have the misfortune to get ousted. All Dissen¬ 
ters are heretics. Should any order of those of the present 
day come to possess themselves of the ascendancy, (which 

* Tertullian De An. c. 51, quoted by Evanson, p. 15. 

t The relics of this truly Christian Dog are preserved m the parish church 
of San Andres, near Valladolid, to this day. His soul is with Jesus. We may 
laugh at this in England; but he would be a brave man who laughed at it in Spam 
See Catholic Miracles , p. 43. 

32* 


366 


HERETICS. 


God avert) how absurd or monstrous soever their religious 
tenets might be, they would forthwith become perfectly 
orthodox; and the church, in its turn, losing hold of the 
great primum-mobile of divinity (its revenues and honours) 
might carry with it the selfsame doctrines which it now 
holds, into a state of the most deplorable and damnable 
heresy. “ The learned have reckoned upwards of ninety 
different heresies which arose within the first three cen* 
turies; nor does it appear that even the most early and 
primitive preachers of Christianity, were able to keep the 
telling of the Christian story in their own hands, or to 
provide any sort of security for having it told in the same 
way. 

St. Paul accuses St. Peter of wilfully corrupting the 
gospel of Christ,* and (whatever we may feel ourselves 
bound to think of himself) makes no mincing of the mat¬ 
ter, in telling us, that the other apostles were u false 
apostles , deceitful workers , dogs , and liars , and that they preach¬ 
ed Christ out of envy arid strife. ”f 

In the epistles ascribed to John, and which are admitted 
to have been written some time before either of our gos¬ 
pels; it appears that there were persons professing the 
Christian faith, who considered that a belief that such a 
person as Jesus Christ had ever existed, was no part of 
that faith; and that he was denied to have had any real 
existence as a man, or to have come in the flesh , at a time 
when, if that fact could have been established, there would 
have been no occasion to make a virtue of any man’s 
faith: the matter could at once have been settled for ever 
on a basis of certainty that would have prevented the 
power of the mind to conceive a doubt on the subject. 

The very earliest Christian writings that have come 
down to us, are of a controversial character, and written 
in attempted refutation of heresies. These heresies must 
therefore have been of so much earlier date and prior 
prevalence; they could not have been considered of suf¬ 
ficient consequence to have called (as they seem to have 
done) for the entire devotion and enthusiastic zeal of the 
orthodox party to extirpate, or keep them under, if they 
had not acquired deep root, and become of serious noto¬ 
riety—an inference which leads directly to the conclusion 
that they were of anterior origination to any date that has 
hitherto been ascribed to the gospel history. When the 

* Galatians ii. 14 ; Acts xv. 39; Philippians iii. 2; Phil. i. 15, &c. 

t 1 John iv. 3. 


HERETICS. 


36 p i 

simple fact of the existence of such a man as Jesus 
Christ is questioned, it is usual for the modern advocates 
of Christianity to shelter themselves from all contempla¬ 
tion of the historical difficulties of the case, by assuming* 
his existence to be incontrovertible, and that nothing 
short of idiotcy of understanding, or an intention to irri¬ 
tate and annoy, rather than either to seek or to communi¬ 
cate information, could prompt any man to moot a doubt 
on the subject; nor is it in the power of language to ex¬ 
ceed the airs of insolence and domination which even our 
Unitarian theologers assume, to cloak over their inability 
to give satisfaction on this, the simplest and prime posi¬ 
tion of the case, by taking it for granted, forsooth, that 
none but reckless desperates, or downright fools,* could 
ever have held the human existence of Christ as proble¬ 
matical. We might, say they, as well affect to deny the 
existence of such an individual as Alexander the Great, 
or of Napoleon Bonaparte, and so set at defiance the 
evidence of all facts but such as our senses have attested. 
It being quite forgotten that the existence of Alexander 
and Napoleon was not miraculous, and that there never 
was on earth one other real personage whose existence 
as a real personage was denied and disclaimed even as 
soon as ever it was asserted, as was the case with respect 
to the assumed personality of Christ. But the only com 
mon character that runs through the whole body of here¬ 
tical evidence, is that they one and all, from first to last, 
deny the existence of Jesus Christ as a man, and profess¬ 
ing their faith in him as a God and Saviour, yet uniformly 
and consistently hold the whole story of his life and ac¬ 
tions to be allegorical. “ The greatest part of the Gnos¬ 
tics (taking that name as the most general one for all the 
heretics of the three first centuries) denied that Christ 
was clothed with a real body, or that he suffered really.”f 
Tertullian speaks of only two heresies, that existed in 
the time of the Apostles, i. e. the Docet#., so called from 
the Greek joxume opinion , suspicion , appearance merely, 
as expressive of their opinion that Christ had existed in 
appearance only, and not in reality; and the Ebiomtes, 
so called from the Hebrew word abionim , in expression of 
their poverty, ignorance, and vulgarity.^ Docetism, says 

* Lot any man only read the Preface to the Rev. J. R. Beard’s Historical 
Evidences of Christianity Unassailable, and imagine if he can, how either Cod 
or Pope could ever have thundered with more audacious Godhead. 

t Mosheim, Voi. 1, p. 138. 

t Quoted iu Lardner, v»l. 4, p. 512 


368 


HERETICS. 


Dr. Lardner, “ seems to have derived its origin from the 
Platonic philosophy. For the followers of this opinion 
were principally among the higher classes of men, and 
were chiefly those who had been converted from heath on- 
ism to Christianity.”* As far then, as such a question 
admits of proof, this is absolute proof that no such a 
person as Jesus Christ ever existed,—“ Blow winds, and 
crack your cheeks!” 


HERETICS WHO DENIED CHRIST’S HUMANITY. 

Within the immediate year of the alleged crucifixion of 
Christ, or sooner than any other account of the matter 
could have been made known, it was publicly taught, that 
instead of having been miraculously born, and having 
passed through the impotence of infancy, boyhood, and 
adolescence, he had descended on the banks of the Jordan 
in the form of perfect manhood, that he had imposed on 
the senses of his enemies, and of his disciples, and that 
the ministers of Pilate had wasted their impotent rage on 
an airy phantom.f Cotelerius has a strong passage to 
this effect, that “ it would be as it were to deny that the 
sun shines at mid-day, to question the fact that this was 
really the first way in which the gospel story was related:” 
“ While the apostles were yet on earth, nay, while the 
blood of Christ was still recent on Mount Calvary, the 
body of Christ was asserted to be a mere phantasm”^ 

The heretics in regular succession from Simon Magus, 
so considerable a hero in the Acts of the Apostles, down¬ 
wards—as Menander, Marcion, Valentine, Basilides, 
Bardesanes, Cerdon, Manes, Leucius, Faustus,—vehe¬ 
mently denied the humanity of Christ. 


CERDON. 

Though Dr. Lardner thinks the testimony of Cerdon of 
sufficient respectability to assist the claims of the New 
Testament, and concludes that Cerdon was a Christian, 
and received the books of the New Testament as other 
Christians did; yet, taking that book as his guide, he 
established his sect at Rome, where he taught, (the New 

* Quoted in Lardner, vol. 4, p. 628. + Syntagma, p. 101. 

t Apostolis adhuc in sajculo superstitibus apud Judaeam Christi sanguine re¬ 
route, et Phantasma corpus Domini asserebatur.— Cotel. Patres Apostol t 
lorn. 2,p. 24. 




HERETICS. 


369 


Testament in his understanding of it containing nothing to 
the contrary), that “ our Savour Jesus Christ was not born 
of a virgin, nor did appear at all in the flesh, nor had he 
descended from heaven ; but that he was seen by men 
oidy putatively , that is, they fancied they saw him, but did 
not see him in reality, for he was only a shadow , and seemed 
to suffer, but in reality did not suffer at all.” 


MARCION OF PONTUS, A. D. 127. 

The successor of Cerdon, and himself the son of the 
orthodox bishop of that city, whose opinions, according 
to the testimony of his adversary Epiphanias, prevailed, 
and in his own day still subsisted throughout Italy, Egypt, 
Palestine, Arabia, and Syria, was so far from believing 
that our Saviour was horn of a virgin, that he did not al¬ 
low that he had ever been born at all. He maintained 
that the son of God took the exterior form of a man, and 
appeared as a man, but without being born, or gradually 
growing up to the full stature of a man, he had showed 
himself at once in Galilee, completely equipped for his di¬ 
vine mission, and that he immediately assumed the char¬ 
acter of a Saviour. 

Dr. Lardner instructs us that the Marcionites (the fol¬ 
lowers of the opinions of Marcion) believed the miracles 
of Christ ; they moreover allowed the truth of the miracu¬ 
lous earthquake and darkness at the crucifixion ; they 
acknowledged his having had twelve disciples, and that 
one of them was a traitor. “ It is evident that these 
persons were in general strictly virtuous, that they dreaded 
sin as the greatest evil, and had such a real regard for 
Christ as to undergo martyrdom rather than offer incense 
to idols.” (605.) This was at least so much more than 
Origen, with all his orthodoxy, would do. If we deny 
these men to have been Christians, to whom shall we 
confine that designation ? It cannot be disputed that the 
Gospel according to St. Mark does admit of a Marcionite 
reading ; nor did these primitive dissenters entirely reject 
Luke’s Gospel, though in their copy of that Gospel the 
verse 39 of its 24th chapter* contained the little particle 
jnot, where our copies have omitted it—an omission 

* Luke xxiv. 39. “ Handle me and see ; for a spirit hath not flesh and 
bones as you see me have.” The Marcionite leading was,—&c. “ a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones, as ye see that 1 have not .”—WjkcnprjnaTc us xai tdsis ox 
nvsvpa oaoxa , xai oorsa ovx t/ft, xuxhog sps &swQeiTe ovx ejfoixa. 



370 


HERETICS. 


which, at the first blush, seems to make a trifling differ 
ence. Tertullian, in his way, is indecently eloquent in de 
scribing the tenets which the Marcionites held with re 
spect to ihe person of Christ.* 


LEUCIUS, A. D. 143. 

Or Lucian, for he had many names—Lucanus, Lucius, 
Leicius, Lentitius, Leontius, Seleucius, Charnius, Leo¬ 
nides, and even Nexocharides, which mean all one and 
the same person, was a distinguished Christian Docete, 
and one of the most eminent forgers of sacred legends of 
the second century. He is charged with being the forger 
of the Gospel of Nicodemus, and was the author .of the 
forged acts or journeyings of the Apostles. In the com¬ 
mentaries which go under the name of Clement of Alex¬ 
andria, a passage from this work is quoted, which says 
that the Apostle John, “ attempting to touch the body of 
Christ, perceived no hardness of the flesh, and met with 
no resistance from it, but thrust his hand into the inner 
part.” A sense which, whatever sense or nonsense there 
be in it, is at least kept in countenance by St. Luke’s Gos¬ 
pel (if this Lucius and our Luke are not one and the same 
person), where Luke tells us of Christ’s vanishing away , 
which no body could do (Chap. 24, v. 3l),f and then, with¬ 
out any entree , standing again (a la vampire ) in the midst 
of them (v. 36.) Say we nothing of the corroboration 
from St. John’s Gospel, where he bids Thomas thrust his 
hand into his side, which no body could have endured 
(John xx. 27.), but refused to let the lady Magdalene so 
much as touch him, which no body could have had any 
objection to. (v. 17.) We have no reason, however, to 
think this Leucius any the sorryer a Christian because 
Pope Gelasius has condemned him and his writings, de¬ 
claring that all his writings are apochryphal, and he him¬ 
self a disciple of the devil. 

APELLES, A. D. 160, 

That is, about twenty years after the establishment of 
Marcion, whose disciple he had been, made a schism from 

* Non novem mensium cruciatu deliberatus, non subita dolornm coneussione per 
corporis cloacam effusus in terram,nec molestus uberibus diu infans, vix puer, 
tarde homo sed de ccelo expositus, semel grandis, semel totus, stutim Ohristus, 
Spiritus et Virtus et Deus tantum.— Adv. Marcion, 601. 

t Kai avrog a<puvTog eysviro an* avTui *, 




HERETICS. 


371 


i he Marcionite church ; and thus we trace by what de¬ 
grees the Docetian doctrines were brought into a nearer 
conformity to the present type of Christianity, and what 
was originally romance began to assume a certain resem¬ 
blance to history. 

Apelles renounced the doctrine of Docetism , and main¬ 
tained that Christ was not an appearance only, but had 
flesh really, though not derived from the Virgin Mary, for 
as he descended from the supercelestial places to this 
earth, he collected to himself a body out of the four ele¬ 
ments. Having thus formed to himself a corporeity, he 
really appeared in this world, and taught men the know¬ 
ledge of heavenly things. Apelles taught that Jesus was 
really crucified, and afterwards showed that very flesh in 
which he suffered, to his disciples ; but that afterwards, as 
he ascended, he returned the body which he had borrowed 
back again to the elements, and so completed his anabasis, 
and sat down at the right hand of God, without any body 
at all. According to this Father, however, Christ was not 
born , nor was his body like ours ; for though it was real 
and solid, it consisted of aerial and etherial particles, not 
of such gross matter as our frail bodies are composed of. 
—It was a sort of amber. 


FAUSTUS, 

The most learned and intelligent Manichean, whom we 
have elsewhere quoted as directly charging the orthodox 
party with having egregiously falsified the gospels,* (a 
charge which the orthodox only answer, by retorting it 
again upon the heretics,) in his interrogative style, thus 
expresses himself—“ fDo you receive the gospel ? (ask ye) 
Undoubtedly I do ! Why then, you also admit that Christ 
was born ?—Not so ; for it by no means follows, that 
in believing the gospel, I should therefore believe that 
Christ was born ! Do you not then think that he was 
of the Virgin Mary ? Manes hath said, 4 Far be it that 
I should ever own that our Lord Jesus Christ * * 

# * * *” 


* See pp. 65, 66, and 114, in this Diegests. 

t Accipis evangelium ? Et maxime. Proinde ergo et natum accipis Chrutum ? 
Non ita est. Neque enim sequitur ut si evangelium accipio, idcirco et natum ac- 
cipiam Christum. Ergo non putas eum ex Maria Virgine esse? Manes dixit, 
Absit ut Dominum nostrum Jesum Christum per naturalia pudenda mulieris de 
Bcendisse confitear.- -Lardner, ita , vol. 4, p. 20. 



372 


HERETICS. 


HERETICS WHO DENIED CHRIST’S DIVINITY. 

Down the whole stream of time, to the present duy ; 
there has been a long succession of heretics, whose tenets 
were the diametrical reverse of these of the more early 
Christians. From Artemon, Theodotus, SabeLius, Paul of 
Samosata, Marcellas, Photinus, Sic. we inherit the curse 
of the Unitarian schism , which denies the divinity , as stre¬ 
nuously, as the earlier Fathers had denied the humanity of 
Christ. The orthodox have devised a scheme that seems 
to havq been intended to bring both parties together, or 
to enable them to turn their arms either against the one 
faction or the other, as political interests might prompt, 
or need require ; and the union of the two natures—per¬ 
fect God and perfect man—is now the orthodox divinity. 
It is, I suppose, upon inference from these difficulties, 
which never could have been started with respect to any 
being who had ever really existed ; or which being started, 
could have been settled at once and for ever, by the pro¬ 
duction of any one municipal certificate, or independent 
historical testimony, that Mr. Volney, Mr. Carlile, and 
other persons who do not exactly deserve to be considered 
as idiots, have ventured to deny that any such person as 
Jesus ever existed. 

It is of essential consequence to be borne in view, that 
in order of time, 

Those who denied the humanity of Christ were the first 
class of professing Christians, and not only first in order of 
time, but in dignity of character, in intelligence, and in 
moral influence. 

Those who denied the divinity , were the second, and in 
every sense a less philosophical and less important body. 

The junction of the two in the mongrel scheme of mod¬ 
ern orthodoxy, seems to have been completed in the arti¬ 
cles of peace drawn up for the Council of Nice, a. d. 325. 

The deniers of the humanity of Christ, or, in a word, 
professing Christians, who denied that any such a man as 
Jesus Christ ever existed at all, but who took the name Je¬ 
sus Christ to signify only an abstraction, or prosopopoeia, 
Uie principle of Reason personified ; and who understood the 
whole gospel story to be a sublime allegory, or emblema¬ 
tical exhibition of the sufferings and persecutions which 
the divine principle of reason , may be supposed to undergo, 
ere it could establish its heavenly kingdom over the under- 


HERETICS. 


373 


standings and affections of men;—these were the first, 
and (it is no dishonour to Christianity to pronounce them) 
the best and most rationed Christians. Many such fell 
victims to the sincerity of their faith, not, indeed, as is 
monstrously pretended by the persecuting genius of Pa¬ 
ganism, but by the remorseless savageness of the infatu¬ 
ated idiots, who, having once been interested in the alle¬ 
gorical fiction, like our country louts or Unitarian stolids 
of the present day, would needs have it that it must all be 
true , and were ready to tear any one to pieces who at¬ 
tempted to deprive them of the agreeable delusion. 

The allegorical sense may, by any unsophisticated 
mind, be still traced; and, by changing the name Jesus 
throughout for that of Reason , the New Testament will 
acquire a character of comparative dignity and consis¬ 
tency, which without that clue to the interpretation of it, 
would be sought for in vain. 


HERETICS WHO DENIED CHRIST’S CRUCIFIXION. 

Not only among the Apostles, but by those who were 
called Apostles themselves, was the reality of the cruci¬ 
fixion steadily denied. In the gospel of the Apostle Bar¬ 
nabas, of which there is extant an Italian translation 
written in 1470, or in 1480, which Toland* himself saw, 
and which was sold by Cramer to Prince Eugene, it is ex¬ 
plicitly asserted, that “ Jesus Christ icas not crucified , but 
that he was taken up into the third heavens by the min¬ 
istry of four angels, Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, and 
Uriel; that he should not die till the very end of the 
world, and that it was Judas Iscariot, who was crucified 
in his stead ” 

This account of the matter entirely squares with the 
account which we have of the bitter and unappeaseable 
quarrel which took place between Paul and Barnabas, in 
the Acts of the Apostles,f without any satisfactory account 
of the ground of that quarrel; as well as with the fact that 
Paul seems always to have preferred imposing his gospel 
on the ignorant and credulous vulgar, and lays such a 
significant emphasis on the distinction that he preached 
“Jesus Christ, and Him crucified ,” as if in marked op 


* Toland’s Nazarenus, Letter I. Chap. 5, p. 17. 

t Acts xv. 39. “ And the contention was so sharp between them, that they 
departed asunder one Jrum the other.” VVe never hear of their being recon¬ 
ciled again —but that is not extraordinary—no beast in natnre is so implacable as ap 
offended saint. 

33 



374 


HERETICS. 


position to his former patron, Barnabas, who preached Je¬ 
sus Christ, but not crucified. 

The Basilidians , in the very beginning of Christianity, in 
like manner denied that Christ was crucified, and assert¬ 
ed that it was Simon of Cyrene, who was crucified in his 
place: which account of the matter stood its ground from 
the first to the seventh century, and was the form in which 
Christianity presented itself to the mind of Mahomet, who, 
after instructing us how the Virgin Mary conceived by 
smelling a rose, tells us, that “ the Jews devised a stratagem 
against him , but God devised a stratagem against them , and God 
is the best deviser of stratagems .” “ The malice of his ene¬ 

mies aspersed his reputation, and conspired against his 
life, but their intention only was guilty, a phantom or a 
criminal was substituted on the cross, and the innocent 
Jesus was translated into the seventh heaven.”* 

So much for the evidence of the Crucifixion of Christ! 


HERETICS WHO DENIED CHRISTAS RESURRECTION. 

In like manner, we have a long list of sincerely-pro¬ 
fessing Christians down from the earliest times, who denied 
the resurrection of Christ. 

Theodoret informs us of Cerinthus, who was contem¬ 
porary with the Apostle John and his followers, and that, 
he held and taught that Christf suffered and was crucified, 
but that he did not rise from the tomb: but that he will 
rise when there shall be a general resurrection. Phi- 
laster says of himj that he taught that men should be 
circumcised, and observe the Sabbath, and that Christ 
was not yet risen from the dead, only he announces that 
he will rise. 

Had the Christ of the Gospels been really the founder of 
the Christian religion, certainly it would be incumbent on 
all Christians to be circumcised as he was, and to observe 
that Jewish law only, which he observed, and which he was 
so far from abrogating, that he declared that “heaven and 
earth should pass away ere one jot or one tittle of that 
law,” should be dispensed with.—Matt. v. 18. Our modern 
religionits are Paulites: The Jews alone are the followers 
of the example and religion of Jesus. 

* See the Koran, C. iii v. 53, and C. iv. v. 156, of Maracci’s edition 
t X'jiotov nenov&srvu y.ui sOTixxjowa&ai : disyt/ysyOai : utXXsiv tie 

QvtOTundvu otov »/ xaOoXov ysrjuTtfi r«*otov avaciTuOig. 

t Docet autem circurncidi et sabbatizare et Christum nondum resurrexisse a 
mortuis sed, resurrecturum annunciat.— Lardner , vol. 4, p. 368. 



EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


3U 


The Cerinthians, 
The Valentinians, 
The Markosians, 
The Cerdonians, 
The Marcionites, 
The Bardisanites, 
The Origenists, 
The Hierakites, 
The Manichees, 


Stand in the long and nev¬ 
er interrupted succes¬ 
sion of Christians who 
denied the Resurrection 
of Christ 


I have heard of one of the most popular and distinguished 
preachers among the Unitarians, who, upon being homely 
pressed with the question as to ivhere he believed the body of 
Jesus Christ might at this moment be, pointed with his finger 
to the turf, and looked vastly droll, in intimation of his con¬ 
currence in that orthodox belief, so sublimely expressed in 
the epitaphs we stumble on in Deptford church-yard: 
against which, I believe there never was an infidel yet, 
who could bring a rational objection. 

“ Go home, dear friends, dry up your tears, 

Here we shall lie, till Christ appears, 

And when he comes we hope to have 
A joyful rising from the grave.” 

As the whole amount of the internal evidence for the 
alleged fact of the Gospel, it may then be fairly stated, 
that in contravention of the clear understanding of the 
mystical nature of the whole Mythos, which those who 
bear the brand of heresy have giveta us—while a thousand 
expressions in the writings of the orthodox themselves 
confirm that understanding: not so much as any two con¬ 
tinuous sentences can be adduced from any pen that 
wrote within a hundred years of the supposed death and 
resurrection of Christ, which are such as any writer 
whatever would have written, had he himself believed 
that such events had really occurred. 


CHAPTER XLV. 

THE WHOLE OF THE EXTERNAL EVIDENCE OF THE 
CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 

Paley, in his Horse Paulinse, with that consummate 
ingenuity which might be expected from a clergyman who 
could not afford to have a conscience , has contrived to substi¬ 
tute a very plausible and indeed convincing evidence of 
the existence and character of Paul of Tarsus, for a 





17G 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


presumptive evidence of the truth of Christianity. The 
instances of evidently-undesigned coincidence between the 
Epistles of Paul, and the history of him contained in the 
Acts of the Apostles, are indeed irrefragible: and make out 
the conclusion to the satisfaction of every fair inquirer, 
that neither those epistles, nor that part of the Acts of 
the Apostles are suppositious. The hero of the one is 
unquestionably the epistoler of the other; both writings 
are therefore genuine to the full extent of every thing 
that they purport to be, neither are the Epistles forged, 
nor is the history, as far as it relates to St. Paul , other than 
a faithful and a fair account of a person who really exist¬ 
ed, and acted the part therein ascribed to him. 


TESTIMONY OF LUCIAN. 

Lucian, in his dialogue entitled Philopatris, speaks of a 
Galilean with a bald forehead and a long nose, who was 
carried, (or rather pretended that he had been carried) to 
the third heaven, and speaks of his hearers as a set of 
tatterdemalions almost naked, with fierce looks, and the 
gait of madmen, who moan and make contortions; swear¬ 
ing by the son who was begotten by the father; predicting 
a thousand misfortunes to the empire, and cursing the 
Emperor. I have far greater pleasure in quoting the un¬ 
exceptionable 

TESTIMONY OF LONGINUS. 

Longinus Dionysius Cassius, who had been Secretary 
to Zeriobia Queen of Palmyra, and died a. d. 273, in his 
enumeration, of the most distinguished characters of 
Greece; after naming Demosthenes, Lysias, AEschines, 
Aristides, and others, concludes, and “ add to these Paul 
of Tarsus, whom I consider to be the first setter-forth of 
an unproved doctrine.”* 

This testimony is, indeed, very late in time, and extends 
a very little way; but let it avail as much as it may avail, 
there can be no doubt (whether Christianity be received 
or rejected) that Paul was a most distinguished and con¬ 
spicuous metaphysician, who lived and wrote about the 
time usually assigned, and that those Epistles which go 
under his name in the New Testament, are in good faith, 
(and even with less alteration than many other writings of 
equal antiquity have undergone) such as he either penned 
or dictated. Should any sincere and upright believer in 

*77ooc tovtovc JIuvXoc o Taodsvg ovrira xat nqwrov (prju nQoiOTa^itvov floypaToe 
uva:ioSsiy.rov. — Eur. Magazine. 



EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


377 


the Christian religion, instead of reviling and lLsuitJitir the 
author of this work, or going about to increase and extend 
the horrors of that unjust imprisonment, of which this 
work has been the chief solace—set himself ably and con¬ 
scientiously to the business of showing that from an admis¬ 
sion of the genuineness and authenticity of St. Paul s 
Epistles, and of the reality of the character and part as¬ 
cribed to him in the Acts of the Apostles, (always except¬ 
ing the miraculous) the existence of Jesus Christ as a 
man, and the general credibility of the gospel history 
would follow ; he would deserve well of the Christian com¬ 
munity, and of all men who wish to see truth triumphant 
over prejudice, ignorance, and ernr. 


THE TESTIMONY OF PHLEGON. 

This has long ago been given up as an egregious 
monkish forgery, no longer tenable ; nor indeed is it ever 
adduced by our more modern and rational divines. Mr. 
Gibbon, in his caustic and expressive style, says, “the 
celebrated passage of Phlegon is now wisely abandoned;”* 
but as he has not quoted it, and I find it, standing its 
ground in the celebrated Dr. Clarke’s Evidences of Natural 
and Revealed Religion, I have thought it worthy of trans¬ 
cription in this place. This it is, 

“ fin the fourth year of the two hundred and second 
Olympiad, there was an eclipse of the sun greater than any 
ever known before ; and it was night at the sixth hour of 
the day, so that even the stars appeared, and there was a 
great earthquake in Bythinia, that overthrew several 
houses in Nice.” 


THE PASSAGE OF MACROBIUS. 

“ When Augustus had heard that among the children in 
Syria, whom Herod, King of the Jews, had ordered to be 
slain under two years of age, his own son was also killed, 
he remarked that it was better to be Herod’s hog than his 
son.”J 

* Decline and Fall, chap. 15, ad calcrm. 

t TsraQTu) S'fTtt rrjg diaxoaioortjg StvrtQag oXvpniaSog, tysvtTO exAcinoig rjfoov, 
peyiaTi] rov tyvwQtOutvwv nQOTf qov, xai vvg 0)Qff txrt] rrjg ijitQag tyevtro wots xat 
aartQag sv ovquv to (pavtjrai, xat otia^ioc. — x. r. A. 

X Cum audisset (■ Augustus) inter pueros quos in Syria, Herodes rex Judaeorum 
intra bimatum jussit interfici, filium quoque ejus occisum, ait, “ Melius est Heredia 
porcum esse quam filium.”— Macrobius , lib. 2. c. 4.— Clarke 355. 

33 * 




378 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


There is no occasion to be prolix in comment upon a 
passage, which though urged by Dr. Clarke, and some of 
our earlier Christian evidence writers, is regarded gene¬ 
rally by Christians themselves as somewhat below the line 
of respectability. It is not adduced by Eusebius who is 
ridiculously diffuse on the slaughter of the children in 
Bethlehem,* and who would have made much of it, had it 
been known to him. The probability is, that Macrobius 
might have recorded, such a saying of Augustus, with re 
spect to some unnatural father, or even of Herod himsel 1 ', 
whose cruelty to his own family was but little inferior to 
that of the evangelical Constantine ; and some of the 
Monkish Radiurgs,f or dexterously-forging scribes, might 
have thought it a good exploit, to fit it with the occasion. 

The whole passage of St. Matthew’s Gospel, which re 
lates the story of the slaughter of the innocents, is mark¬ 
ed in the improved version of the New Testament, as of 
doubtful authority ; and is included among some of the facts, 
of which the Unitarian editors of that version, say in their 
note, that they have a fabulous appearance . 

I cannot possibly treat this delicate subject with greatei 
delicacy, than by possessing my readers of the judgment 
which a learned, intelligent, and sincere believer in the 
Christian religion, has passed upon it. 

“Josephus and the Roman historians give us particular 
accounts of the character of this Jewish king, who receiv¬ 
ed his sovereign authority from the Roman Emperor, and 
inform us of other acts of cruelty which he was guilty of 
in his own family ; but of this infamous inhuman butchery, 
which to this day remains unparralleled in the annals of 
tyranny, they are entirely silent. Under such circumstan¬ 
ces, if my eternal happiness depended upon it, I could not 
believe it true. But though I readily exclaim with Horace, 
non ego, f I cannot add, as he does, credat Judaeus Apella ;§ 
for I am confident, there is no Jew that reads this chapter, 
who does not laugh at the ignorant credulity of those 
professed Christians,|| who receive such gross, palpable 
falsehoods for the inspired word of God, and lay the foun¬ 
dation of their religion upon such incredible fictions as 
these. ”11 

* Eccles. Hist. lib. 1, c. 9. t PadiovQyot 

t JVot II § Let the Jew Apelles believe t 

II Surely this professed Christian had not the fear of Oakham before his eye*. 

IT Reverend Edward Evanson’s Dissonance of the Gospels. Ed Ipswich 1792, 

p 126 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


379 


PUBLIUS LENTULUS. 

It was a known custom of government, that whatever 
of moment occurred in any province of the empire, should 
be transmitted in due report from the provincial authorities 
to the knowledge of the Roman Emperor and the Senate. 
Of this, the correspondence of the younger Pliny and the 
emperor Trajan, as well as the natural and obvious neces¬ 
sity of the thing, is proof unquestionable. 

Upon the notoriety of this custom, and the self-evident 
inference, that it was impossible that the Procurator or re¬ 
presentative of the Roman authority in Judea, should have 
omitted to make a report of the existence and miracles of 
Jesus Christ ; a few years ago, the great libraries of Eng¬ 
land, France, Italy, and Germany, pretended to possess 
their several authentic copies of the epistle, in which 
Publius Lent ulus, the supposed predecessor of Pontius Pilate 
in the Province of Judea, was believed to have written to 
the Roman Senate a most particular description of the 
person of Jesus Christ.* 

It was first found in the History of Christ , as written in 
Persic by Jeremy or Hieronymus Xavier. 

In front of certain parchment manuscripts of the gos¬ 
pels, written three hundred and twenty-five years ago, 
preserved in the library at Jena, there is still preserved, 
the following inscription : 

“ In the time of Octavius Caesar, Publius Lentulus, pro- 
consul in the parts of Judaea and (the territory) of Herod 
the King, is said to have written this epistle to the Roman 
Senators, which was afterwards found by Eutropius in 
the annals of the Romans.”! This commentitious epistle 
was formerly edited among orthodox writings, under the 
title,— 

“ Lentulus, Prefect of Jerusalem, to the Senate and 

people of Rome, greeting ; 

“ JAt this time, there hath appeared, and still lives, a 

* All our pictures of the handsome Jew, present the closest family likeness to 
the Indian Chrishna, and the Greek and Roman Apollo. Had the Jewish text 
been respected, he would rather have been exhibited as hideously ugly : “ his vis¬ 
age was so marred more than any man, and. his form more than the sons 
of men.” —Isaiah lii. 14. But this would have spoiled the ornaments of the 
church as well as of the theatre, and been fatal to the faith of the fair sex.—Who 
could have believed in an ugly son of God ? 

t Temporibus Octaviani Caesaris, Publius Lentulus Procos. in partibus Judaea, 
et Herodis Regis, Senatoribus Romanis, hanc epistolam scripsisse fertur, quae 
postea ab Eutropio reperta est in annalibus Romanorum.— Fabricii Cod. Apoc. 
tom. 1, p. 302. 

i Hoc tempore vir apparuit, et adhuc vivit vir praeditus potentia magna, 


380 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


man endued with great powers, whose name is Jesus 
Christ. Men say that he is a mighty prophet ; his dis 
eiples call him the Son of God. Ke restores the dead to 
life, and heals the sick from all sorts of ailments and 
diseases. He is a man of stature, proportionably tall, 
and his cast of countenance has a certain severity in it, 
so full of effect, as to induce beholders to love, and yet 
still to fear him. His hair is of the colour of wine, as far as 
to the bottom of his ears, without radiation , and straight; 
and from the lower part of his ears, it is curled, down to 
his shoulders, and bright, and hangs downwards from 
his shoulders ; at the top of his head it is parted after the 
fashion of the Nazarines. His forehead is smooth and 
clean, and his face without a pimple, adorned by a certain 
temperate redness ; his countenance gentlemanlike and 
agreeable, his nose and mouth nothing amiss ; his beard 
thick, and divided into two bunches, of the same colour 
as his hair ; his eyes blue , and uncommonly bright. In 
reproving and rebuking he is formidable ; in teaching and 
exhorting, of a bland and agreeable tongue. He has a 
wonderful grace of person united with seriousness. No 
one hath ever seen him smile, but weeping indeed they 
have. He hath a lengthened stature of body ; his hands 
are straight and turned up, his arms are delectable ; in 
speaking, deliberate and slow, and sparing of his conver¬ 
sation ;—the most beautiful of countenance among the sons 
of men.” 


THE VERONICA HANDKERCHIEF 

Would not deserve a consideration among the external 
evidences of Christianity, had it not been consecrated by 
the serious belief and earnest devotion of the largest body 

nomen ejus Jesus Christus : Homines eum prophetam potentem dicunt, disci- 
puli ejus, filium Dei vocant. Mortuos vivificat, et aegros ab omnis generis 
segritudinibus et morbis sanat. Vir est attae staturae proportionate, et conspectus 
vultus ejus cum severitate, et plenus efficacia, ut spectatores amare eum possint et 
rursus timere. Pili capitis ejus, vinei coloris usque ad fundamentum aurium, 
sine radiatione et erecti, et a fundamento aurium usque ad humeros contorti, ac 
lucidi, et ab humeris deorsum pendentes, bifido vertice dispositi in morem Na- 
zaraeorum. Frons plana et pura, facies ejus sine macula quam rubor quidam 
temperatus ornat. Aspectus ejus ingenuus et gratus. Nasus et os ejus nullo 
modo reprehensibilia. Barba ejus multa, et colore pilorum capitis bifurcata : 
Oculi ejus caerulei et extreme lucidi. In reprehendendo et objurgando formi- 
dibilis, in docendo et exhortando blandae linguae et amabilis. Gratia miranda 
vultus, cum gravitate. Vel semel eum ridentem nemo vidit, sed flentern imo. 
Protracta statura corporis, manus ejus rectae, et erectae, brachia ejus delectabilia. 
In loquendo ponderans et gravis, et parcus loquela. Pulcherrimus vultu inter horm 
aps satos.” 





EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


381 


and most ancient sect of professed Christians. I make no 
remark on the story, but copy it as I find it, in a note of 
the editor on the text of Eusebius, where he relates the 
story of the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus.* “How 
that Abgarus, governor of Edessa, sent his letter unto 
Jesus, and withal a certain painter, who might view him 
well, and bring unto him back again the lively picture of 
Jesus. But the painter not being able, for the glorious 
brightness of his gracious countenance, to look at him so 
steadily as to catch his likeness, our Saviour himself took 
an handkerchief, and laid it on his divine and lovely face, 
and by wiping of his face, his picture became impressed on 
the handkerchief, the which he sent to Abgarus.” 

This story the translator gives with severe censure from 
the historian Nicephorus, and perhaps it might deserve no 
less ; but that the impartial principle of this Diegesis, 
forbids our treating any subject with levity or indiffer¬ 
ence, that has had power to engage the impassioned affec¬ 
tions and earnest devotions of so numerous and respectable 
a portion of the Christian community. 

I copy from Blount’s Philostratus, the annexed prayer, 
extracted from a Roman Catholic Liturgy, or manual of 
true piety : 

The Prayer to Veronica .f 

u Hail Holy Face impressed on cloth ! Purge us from 
every spot of vice, and join us to the society of the bless¬ 
ed ; 0 blessed Figure !” 


THE TESTIMONY OF PILATE. 

In the same spirit of pious fraud, the Christian world 
had for ages been led to believe that the governor Pon¬ 
tius Pilate had sent to the emperor Tiberius, an account 
of the crucifixion of Christ ; which indeed, had such a 
person ever existed, and such an event taken place, it 
is next to impossible to conceive that he should not have 
done. But, alas, this testimony too, has been swept away 
by the terrible besom of rational criticism ; and is now 
left to lie with that of Lentulus, the Veronica handker¬ 
chief, and the Sibylline Oracles : among the number of 

* Euseb. Eccles. Hist. lib. 1, c. 14. 

t The name Veronica, occurs in the Gospel ofNicodemus, as that of the lady 
who came behind Jesus and touched the hem of his garment. “ Veronica, ista 
videter literis transposes, nata ex vocabulis duobus, vera icon. Certum est, 

imaginein ipsarn Christi, a scriptoribus non paucis, dici Veronioam.”- Fab 

tom. 1, p 252. 



3S2 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


apocryphal cheats and impositions, which served the pur 
pose of imposing on generations which were more easily 
imposed on, but are rejected with disdain and disgust by 
the increasing scepticism even of the most orthodox be¬ 
lievers. 

Our immediate grandfathers, were required to believe 
that Pontius Pilate informed the emperor of the unjust 
sentence of death which he had pronounced against an 
innocent, and as it appeared, a divine person ; and that 
without acquiring the merit of martyrdom, he exposed 
himself to the danger of it, that Tiberius, who avowed his 
contempt for all religion, immediately conceived the de¬ 
sign of placing the Jewish Messiah among the Gods of 
Rome ; that his servile senate ventured to disobey the 
commands of their master ; that Tiberius, instead of re¬ 
senting their refusal, contented himself with protecting the 
Christians from the severity of the laws, many years be¬ 
fore there were any laws in existence that could operate 
agaiqst them ; and lastly, that the memory of this extra¬ 
ordinary transaction was preserved in the most public and 
authentic records, only those public and authentic records 
were never seen nor heard of by any of the persons to whose 
keeping they were entrusted, escaped the knowledge and 
research of the historians of Greece and Rome, ana were 
only visible to the eyes of an African priest, who composed 
his apology one hundred and sixty years after the death 
of Tiberius. 

This testimony was first asserted by that brave assertor, 
Justin Martyr ; and as a snowball loses nothing by rolling, 
has received successive accretions in passing through the 
hands of Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanias, Chrysostom, 
and Orosius, till the warm handling of modern criticism 
has thawed away its unsubstantial fabric. 

The faith of that great father of pious frauds, Euse¬ 
bius, upon this testimony glows into a fervour of assu¬ 
rance, which on any other subject would look like impu¬ 
dence . For after having assured us on the testimony of 
Tertullian, that Tiberius was so convinced by the account 
that Pilate had sent him, of the resurrection of Christ, 
that he threatens death to any person who should but 
bring an accusation against the Christians, when certainly 
there were no Christians ; and takes upon himself to in¬ 
form us, that #u it was the divine providence, that by way 

* Ttjg utJaviH nQovotag xut’ oixorofiiav tbt ’ avrm nyog rev ftaXXuiitr^g, wg at 
ana(jaion.iOTo)g uo/ag f/tuv evayyeXtu Xoyog naiTu/ont yr t g diudyoiiui, lib. 2. c. 2 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


383 


of management, injected this thought into the Emperor's 
mind, in order, that the word of the gospel, having -got a 
fair starting, might rur. throughout the whole world with¬ 
out opposition.” 

The probability of the supposed occasion, was sure to 
bid for its ample supply of forgeries to be fastened upon 
it:—and as Ovid, having once got the names and circum¬ 
stances of either real or imaginary personages, given as 
data, has invented imaginary speeches and epistles suit¬ 
able for such personages, under such circumstances to 
have delivered, so Christian piety has supplied us with 
stores of epistles—not which Pilate wrote, but which he 
may be supposed to have written ; which for all the au¬ 
thentication required in matters of faith, is authenti 
cation enough. None but unbelievers would wish for 
more. 

John Albert Fabricius, has in his Codex Apocryphus, 
noticed five of these suppositious epistles—of which one, 
called the Jlnaphora or Relation of Pilate to Tiberius is 
in Greek, and of considerable length, as intended per¬ 
haps, if it had told, to pass for a gospel : the others, 
short and in Latin. I have given translations of them al¬ 
ready in the 22d number of the first volume of “ The 
Lion.” 

The Jlnaphora relates the miracles of Christ as recorded 
in the Gospels ; but supplies one or two additional, as cred¬ 
ible as any of the rest. It does not exactly confirm the 
account which St. Matthew gives us, and which no Chris¬ 
tian can doubt, that u tlie graves were opened, and many dead 
bodies of the saints which slept arose,, and came out of the graves, 
and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.”* But it 
entirely corroborates the story of the miraculous darkness 
at the crucifixion, which Mr. Gibbon handles with such 
galling sarcasm, merely because none of the contemporarj r 
historians and philosophers have condescended to no¬ 
tice it. 

“ There was darkness over the whole earth, the sun in 
the middle of the day being darkened, and the stars ap¬ 
pearing, among whose lights the moon appeared not, 
but as if turned to blood, it left its shining.”! This 
additional circumstance of the moon being turned into 

* Matthew xxvii. 52, 53. 

f T» t]Xin utrrov Tyg tjutQag ay.oTio&tvrog, xai rwv aartQmv tpartvrow, tv o,g 
launt&omv »■/. Etpurntro >/ otfojvt}, to (ptyXog wg cuucctilhoix ditXintv — In addenr 
dis ad Fabricii Codic. Torn. 2, p. 97. 


384 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


blood, is no exaggeration, but is supported by the inspired 
testimony of St. Peter himself, who not only assures 11s 
that the moon was turned into blood , but that the whole uni¬ 
verse, u Heaven above and earth beneath , presented one vast 
exhibition of blood , avid fire , and vapour of smoke.”* ** But 
as there must always be as good reason to believe in mira¬ 
cles of light, as in miracles of darkness, and the resurrec¬ 
tion of our Saviour was surely as worthy an occasion for 
a display of fire-works as his crucifixion, Pilate assured the 
Emperor Tiberius, that “ early in the morning of the first 
of the Sabbaths,f the resurrection of Christ was announced 
by a display of the most astonishing and surprising feats of 
divine Omnipotence ever performed. At the third hour 
of the night, the sun broke forth into such splendor as 
was never before seen,}: and the heaven became enlight¬ 
ened seven times more than on any other dav.”§ “And the 
light ceased not to shine all that night.”|| But the best 
and sublimest part' of the exhibition, as (with reverence 
be it spoken) exemplifying the principle of poetical justice, 
and making a proper finale to the scene was, that u an in¬ 
stantaneous chasm took place, and the earth opened and 
swallowed up all the unbelieving Jews,H their temple and 
synagogues all vanished away ; and the next morning 
there was not so much as one of them left in all Jeru¬ 
salem and the Roman soldiers who had kept the sep¬ 
ulchre ran stark-staring mad.”ff So truly may we 
say, righteous art thou, 0 Lord, and just are thy judg¬ 
ments ! 

A coincident Passage from Arno bins. 

Yet this language ascribed to Pontius Pilate, is hardly 
less hyperbolical than that which the gravest and most 
rational of the Christian Fathers is constrained to use, 
when referring to the same subject. It would not bear 
the telling in the style of historical narrative. The calm 
and philosophical Lardner adduces this testimony of the 
no less philosophical and rational Arnobius, as evidence 
of the “ uncommon darkness and other surprising events 

* Acts ii. 19. t Oxptag ytvopitvtjg, Tr\g uiag tow oafijiaTow. 

t S2ip&t] St TQirr t g viQag Tijg vvxTog tjXoig, a>g eStnoTt, noXXa (paidywag. 

§ £2azt tov HQavov ytvtaOai (poiTayoiyov tnTanXaoiova, vntq naoag rag y/usQag. 

|| Iluaav St vvxra txttvtjv, ex snavoaro to ipwg (patvow. — Ibid. 

IT Tu)v St teSaiuiv tvoXXol tOavov tv toj jpaopiaxt Tijg ytjg xaTUTCMv&svTtg, tog /uw 
tvQt&tjvat en. 

** Tt]v avQioy to nXrjdog tow leSatcov tojv ra xaxa r« irjae Xtyo/utvwv. 

Mia avvaywytj tiov teSau ov ex vntXtjqiOrj tv avTtj tij ItQeaaXtjfi. 

ft Oi St Ti^erTtg to ftvttfittov oTQaTiwTai tv txiaoti ytvo/utvoi. — x. t. X. — Ibid 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


386 

ai the time of our Lord’s passiou and death.”* That 
evidence requires us to believe that, u when he hod put 
off his body, which he carried about in a little part of 
himself, after he suffered himself to be seen, and that it 
should be known of what size he was, all the elements of 
the world, terrified at the strangeness of what had hap¬ 
pened, were put out of order, the earth shook and trem¬ 
bled, the sea was completely poured out from its lowest 
bottom, the whole atmosphere was rolled up into balls of 
darkness, the fiery orb of the sun itself caught cold and shiv¬ 
ered.” f Our Christian Evidence writers are not able to 
adduce so much as a single author, friend or foe, Pagan or 
Christian, who has referred to these miraculous events in 
any way of which they themselves are not ashamed: not 
one who has related the story as if he believed it himself 
—not one, who, however in some passages he may seem 
to speak as an historian, has not in others abundantly indi¬ 
cated a double sense , and shown his own secret understand¬ 
ing, not only that no such events ever happened, but that 
no such person as he of whom they are related, ever 
existed. 


JOSEPHUS, a. d. 93 . 

T. Flavius Josephus , a Jewish priest of the race of the 
Asmonean princes, was born at Jerusalem, taken prisoner 
by Vespasian in his wars, was present in his camp at the 
siege of Jerusalem, and wrote a work on the Jewish An¬ 
tiquities, in twenty books, in the eighteenth of which, the 
third chapter, and third section, occurs the famous pas¬ 
sage. This it is :— 

About that time appeared Jesus, a wise man, if in¬ 
deed it be right to speak of him as a man, for he was a 
performer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as 
receive the truth with pleasure. He drew after him many 

* Lardner, vol. 2, p. 255. 

t Exutus at corpore, quod in exigua sui circumferebat parte, postquam videri se 
passus est, cujus esset aut magnitudinis sciri, novitate rerum exterrita mundi sunt 
elementa turbata, tellus mota contrernuit, mare fundit.us refusum est: aer globis 
involutus est tenebrarum, igneus orbis soiis tepefacto ardore diriguit.—p. 32. 

\ Tirsrai is xara rovrov xov /qovov Iijoovg, oocpog avtjQ, si ye avi()u avTov Xeyeiv 
XQ l l : y l v Y a Q 7 xaQaiogwv sQywv nonjrtjg, iiiaaxuXog avOqwnwv rwv rfiovr] r' aXr;&tj 
ie/ousvwv. Kcu noXXovg f.isv toviaiovg , noXXovg is rot sXXtjvixov inryyaysro. O 
Xmarog ovrog i)v. Kat avrov evist^si rwv JtQwrtwv avtycur nay’ r^iv, aravQw emrs- 
r ,u tj xorog IhXurov, ovx snavoavro oiye to uqwtov avrov ayantjaavreg. Eipai t] yaQ 
avroig, TQirrjv ijusQav e/i»v, naXiv Zwv Twv &eiwv nQoiptjrwv ravra re, xai aXXa 
uvQta nsQt avrov havpaoia, siQtjXorwv. EiOsnrs vov , rwv Xqiortavwv, anorovit 
wvofiu0fisvwv t ovx sniXiJie to (pvXov • 



386 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


of the Jews, as well as of the Gentiles. This same was 
the Chrisi. And though Pilate, by the judgment of the 
chief rulers among us, delivered him to be crucified, those 
who from the first had loved him, fell not from him, for to 
them at least, he showed himself again alive on the third 
day : this, and ten thousand other wonderful things being 
what the holy prophets had foretold concerning him ; so 
that the Christian people, who derive their name from him, 
have not yet ceased to exist.” 

This passage was first quoted hy Eusebius, who exults 
over it as if he had found a prodigious prize. His exulta¬ 
tion itself only serving to awaken suspicion in every crit¬ 
ical mind, that the passage is but another added to the 
long list of his own most audacious forgeries , as he immedi¬ 
ately subjoins— u Wherefore, since this Hebrew historian 
hath of old delivered these things in his own writing, con¬ 
cerning our Saviour, what evasion can save those who 
invent arguments against these things, from standing con¬ 
victed of downright impudence.”* 

Yet for all this terrible defiance, the most unquestionably 
orthodox and best learned of the whole Christian world, 
have invented arguments against the validity of this pas¬ 
sage, and have shown to absolute demonstration the cer¬ 
tainty that Josephus did not write this passage, and the 
probability that Eusebius himself did. 

Mr. Gibbon in his style of most significant double¬ 
throwing, has a note, admonishing us that “ the passage 
concerning Jesus Christ was inserted into the text of 
Josephus, between the time of Origen and that of Euse¬ 
bius, and may furnish us with an example of no vulgar 
forgery.”! / 

No vulgar forgery indeed! the cool calculating wicked¬ 
ness, the reckless impiety, the matchless impudence of 
this detected forgery, should indeed serve us as an 
example, how to trust and how to respect Christian 
testimony. Appended as this note is, to Mr. Gibbon’s 
admission of the respect due to the celebrated passage of 
Tacitus; to what other sense can it be read, than as a hint 
that Mr. Gibbon had no mind to run first in the dangerous 
business of analysing the evidences of the Christian reli¬ 
gion. That work must be left to Christians themselves, and 

* Tavra tov eg avrwv t^Qatuiv crvyyQcuptutg avexa&sv rrj tavrov yQaiprj, niQi . . 
.... tov aurn^og yuiav nagocdeduixciTog, Tig av tli ktmoiTo anuipvyrj tov fitj 
avcuo/mToig, r oig xara nlaaauevotg vnouvy\(iaTa. —Sequenti commate. 

t Declino and Fall, chap. 16. 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


SS7 


as no Lardner has yet given us leave to ,ake the same 
liberty with the passage of Tacitus, “ the most sceptical 
criticism” is obliged to respect its integrity. But it will 
fall in its turn. The fate of the Sibylline oracles: of the 
forged admissions of Porphyry : of the correspondence of 
Christ and Abgarus: of the testimony of Phlegon : of the 
letter to Tiberius : of the monument to Nero : and of all 
other wicked devices that served the turn of imposing on 
the weakness of our forefathers, but will serve no longer ; 
awaits it. But a few years ago, and the author who had 
suggested a suspicion against the genuineness of the pas¬ 
sage in Josephus, if he had happily escaped the horrors of 
a twelvemonths’ imprisonment, must at least have reck¬ 
oned on having to sustain his full share of that abuse 
and hatred, with which the ignorant part of the world, 
which is unfortunately the greatest part, has generally 
rewarded the wisest and best men that ever lived in it.—• 
But conviction has thus far forced itself upon the mind of 
the highest authority which Christians themselves can ap¬ 
peal to. Their own all-deciding Dr. Lardner has pronoun¬ 
ced this passage to be an interpolation.* 

It is rejected also by Ittigius, Blondell, Le Clerc, Van- 
dale, Bishop Warburton, and Tanaquil Faber. 

This latter author suspects that Eusebius himself was 
the author of the interpolation. What then must we think 
of Eusebius ? 

We have already seen that Eusebius is the sheet-anchor 
of reliance for all we know of the three first centuries of 
the Christian history. What then must we think of the 
three first centuries of the Christian history ? 

An author who would deliberately, and with his own 
hand, forge a testimony, and foist it into the writings of 
another who never did, and probably never would, have 
borne any such testimony ; and then quote his own known 
lie, as a proof of the truth of the Christian religion, and 
deal out his anathemas against all who should presume to 
question it—What would he not have forged ? W T hat 
must not he himself have thought of the real nature and 
merits of a cause that needed to be supported by such 
means ? It is curious to see, how even after the defini¬ 
tive judgment of such high and confessedly orthodox au- 

* I have published these arguments in my Forty-fourth, and also lit my Ninetieth 
Oration, delivered before the Areopagus of the Christian Evidence Society, a few 
weeks before the commencemeut ot the persecution which has afforded me leisure 
for these researches. 


388 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


thorities, we are still occasionally pestered with puerile or 
petulant last dying struggles, to rescue this holy cheat from 
the sentence passed upon it— 

For faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast 
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last. 

We are required to give a wholly different reading to 
the passage; to introduce imaginary parentheses, to make 
arbitrary omissions ; or egregiously to mistranslate it: and 
thus forsooth to chisel it into a supposable possibility that 
Josephus might have written it. 

Among the illustrious who have argued in this way, are 
Dr. Samuel Chandler, Dr. Nathaniel Foster, Mr. Henley, 
Mr. Bryant,* the Abbe de Voisin, and the Abbe Bullet. 
But the learned biographer of Lardner, in his life affixed 
to the quarto edition of his works, justly concludes, “ Of 
what avail can it be to produce a testimony so doubtful 
in itself, and which some of the ablest advocates for the 
truth of the Gospel, reject as an interpolation.”! 

Dr. Lardner, after having thoroughly weighed all the 
arguments that could be adduced in its favour, strenuously 
defends his former opinion, that the passage is an inter¬ 
polation. “ It ought therefore to be forever discarded from 
any place among the evidences of Christianity.” J 

Dr. Lardner’s arguments against the passage, in his own 
words, are these: 

1. “ I do not perceive that we at all want the suspected 
testimony to Jesus, which was never quoted by any of our 
Christian ancestors before Eusebius. § 

2. “ Nor do I recollect that Josephus has any where 
mentioned the name or word Christ , in any of his works ; 
except the testimony above mentioned, and the passage 
concerning James the Lord’s brother.|| 

3. “ It interrupts the narrative. 

4. “The language is quite Christian. 

5. “ It is not quoted by Chrysostom, IF though he often 
refers to Josephus, and could not have omitted quoting it, 
had it been then, in the text. 

G. “It is not quoted by Photius, though he has three 
articles concerning Josephus. 

* In his Vindici® Flavian®, or a Vindication of the Testimony given by Jose¬ 
phus concerning our Saviour Jesus Christ, 1777. 

t Life of Dr. Lardner, by Dr. Kippis, p. 23. t Ibid. 23. 

§ His Answer to Dr. Chandler. || Ibid. 

if John, Bishop of Constantinople, who died a. d. 407, was called St. Chrysos¬ 
tom, or Golden-mouthed, from the charms of his eloquence—the author of the 
last prayer in our Liturgy. 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


3»9 


7 “ Under the article Justus of Tiberias, this author 
v Photius) expressly states that this historian (Josephus, 
being a Jew, has not taken the least notice of Christ. 

8. “ Neither Justin in his dialogue with Trypho the 
Jew, nor Clemens Alexaridrinus, who made so many ex¬ 
tracts from ancient authors, nor Origen against Celsus, 
have ever mentioned this testimony. 

9. “ But on the contrary, in Chapter xxxv. of the first 
book of that work, Origen openly affirms, that Josephus 
who had mentioned John the Baptist, did not acknowledge 
Christ. 

Dr. Lardner was anxious to have studied the defence 
set up for this passage by the Abbe Bullet, which it seems 
never came to his hands. Of this defence, the chief ar¬ 
guments, in its own words, are— 

1. “That Josephus could not be ignorant that there 
had appeared in Judea, a charlatan, impostor, magician, 
or prophet, called Jesus, who had either performed won¬ 
ders, or found the secret of persuading numbers to think so. 

2. “ That he ought to have taken some notice of Jesus 
and his disciples; and that 

3. “ Because Suetonus and Tacitus have done so. 

4. “ Because, he has given an accurate account of all 
the impostors, or heads rtf parties which arose amongst 
the Jews, from the empire of Augustus, to the ruin of 
Jerusalem. 

5. “ Because, the faith of history required that the 
existence of Jesus and his disciples should not be passed 
over in silence;” and 

Hence it is inferred that Josephus must have written 
this passage: and its not being found by any of the 
fathers before Eusebius, is to be accounted for, by the 
supposition (a pretty fair one) that Josephus himself 
might have published two distinct editions of his works, 
.nserting the passage in that edition, which came to the 
hand of Eusebius, but omitting it in all others. 

So struggles conquered sophistry against victorious 
truth. 


THE CELEBRATED INSCRIPTION TO NERO. 

As long as it would do—and criticism, afraid of losing 
its ears in the pillory, was constrained to whisper its 
discoveries in a corner, and vent its secret sentiment, in 
u curses not loud but deep,” the evidences of the Christian 
34 * 



390 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


religion, boasted of the celebrated inscription on a public 
monument, erected at the time of the events it recorded, 
and still preserved; ascribing to the emperor Nero, the 
praise of having purged the province of Spain, in which it 
was situated, from those who in his times, were labouring 
to inculcate a new superstition. 

So that here were all the marks of genuineness which 
Mr. Leslie in his Short and Easy Method with Deists, 
maintains to be sufficient to demonstrate an utter impossi¬ 
bility of imposture, in any document in which they are 
found concurring. This celebrated inscription is published 
by the learned Gruterus in the first volume of his Inscrip¬ 
tions, p. 238, is copied by Dr. Lardner from Gruter,* and 
is by the learned Pagi, and other no less learned advocates 
of the evidences of the Christian religion, vindicated by 
arguments quite as learned, as ingenious and as convinc¬ 
ing, as any that have hitherto been adduced for the equal¬ 
ly veracious testimonies of Josephus and Tacitus. The 
inscription is, 

NERONI CLAVDIO CAE SARI AVG PONT MAX 
OB PROV1NC. LATRONIB. 

ET HIS QVI NOV AM 
GENERI HVM. SVPER 
STITIONEM INCVLCAB. 

PVRGATAM. 

t. e. “ To Claudius Caesar Nero Augustus Supreme Pon¬ 
tiff. In honour of the province having been purged from 
thieves, and from those who were endeavouring to teach 
the human race a new superstition.” Snbaudi —no better 
than thieves. I particularly wish to engage the reader’s 
consideration to the homogeneity of character which this 
celebrated inscription presents, to the still more celebrated 
passage of Tacitus. Apply the one, an undoubted and 
unquestionable imposture, as a test of comparison to the 
other. 

The example of this passage demonstrates these corol¬ 
laries:— 

1. That Christian forgers were very heedful to forge in 
keeping and character; and 

2. That in falsely representing what their enemies might 
have been supposed to have said of them, they suited the 
supposition to the person; and 


* Lardner, vol. iii. p. 609 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


391 


3. Rather overdid the representation for the better mak¬ 
ing sure against being suspected of being the authors of it 
themselves. 

4. Reviling and decrying themselves, in rather stronger 
terms than their enemies would have been likely to use 
against them. 

5. Thus they would contentedly he put on a level with 
thieves, and have their divine religion spoken of as some 
thing that ought to he purged out of society; for the sake 
of making the testimony, which they had forged them¬ 
selves, the more plausibly seem to be, the testimony of 
their enemies. 

6. They, holding it better to be spoken of in any way, 
than not to be spoken of at all; and 

7. The specific object and aim of the forgery, not being 
to represent what the character of Christianity was; 
(which they could easily and at any time vindicate,) but 

8. To represent Christians and Christianity to have ex¬ 
isted, when and where they did not exist, to have had an ex¬ 
tent of prevalence which it had not , and to have been 
of a degree of consequence and notoriety, as distinct from 
any of the multifarious modifications of the ancient Pa¬ 
ganism, from which in fact and truth it was neither dis¬ 
tinct, nor distinguishable. 

But this celebrated inscription has at length served its 
generation; and it is now no longer indictable at common 
law, to own the truth with respect to it, and pack it off 
with Josephus, Lentulus, Pilate, Phlegon, and all the whole 
noble army of martyrs. The distinguished Spanish histori¬ 
an, John de Ferreras, has escaped the inquisition, though 
he has ventured to own that he could not restrain himseli 
from confessing,* “ that it was even Cyriac of Ancona, 
who first foisted this bit of Christian evidence upon hu 
man credulity; and that it was from his brewing, that all 
the rest of ’em filled their vessels, but now happily any 
one may judge of it as he pleases.” 

This allowance has emboldened Mr. Gibbon, who shows 
in a note that he has read the passage of Ferreras, to 
fling stones at this inscription, and to say “ it is a 

* Je ne puis m’empecher d’observer que Curiae d’Ancone fut le premier qui 
publia cette inscription, et que e’est de lui que les autresPont tiree; mais comme !a 
foi de cet Ecrivain estsuspecte au jugement de tous les sgavans, que d’ailleurs il n‘y 
a ni vestige ni souvenir de cette inscription dans les places on l’ont dit qu’elle s’esl 
trnuvee, et qu’on ne scait ou la prendre a present, chacun peut en poite” Jf juge 
ment qu’il voudra .—Histoire generate d'Esjiagne, tom. 1, p. 192. 


392 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


manifest and acknowledged forgery, contrived by thal 
noted impostor, Cyriacus of Ancona, to flatter the pride 
and prejudices of the Spaniards.”* He would have said 
as much of the passage of Tacitus, had he but found 
another John de Ferreras, to pioneer his way through the 
brake. 


SIMILAR INSCRIPTIONS. 

While the lie would do, nothing was so common or so 
natural as that it should be often overdone. The advo¬ 
cates for Christianity once meeting a little success in this 
way, would turn every mile-stone on the roads into a mon¬ 
ument of Christianity. More than a copy would be more 
than the worth of these to the emperors Diocletian and 
Maximinian. They rest like that to Nero, on the faith of 
Baronius. 

1. DIOCLET. JOVIUS. MAXIMI. HERCULEI. CAESS. AUGG. 
AMPLIFICATO PER. ORIENTEM. ET. OCCID. IMPER. ROM. ET. 
NOMINE CHRISTIANORUM. DELETO. QUI. REMP. EVERTEBANT, 

and 

2 . DIOCLETIAN CAES. AUG. GALLERIO. IN ORIENTE ADOPT 
SUPERSTITIONE CHRISTI. UBIQV. DELETA CULTU DEORUM 
PROPAGATO. 

Procopius mentions a Phoenician inscription upon two 
famous pillars near Tangiers, which was, 

Huti c ocfftsv ot (pvAovrsg ano nQooumov Tuoov rov Aijorov viov Navi ].— i. e. 

u We are they who fled from the face of Joshua the robber , the 
son of Nun.” 

Thus have we not only forged writings, but pretended 
monuments that never existed, to record events that never 
happened. So reckless, so desperate, so audacious are 
the tricks that have been resorted to, to give to Bible 
Skinlogy , an appearance of historical fact; that is, to bring 
heaven and earth together. 


TACITUS, a. d. 107 . 

We have investigated the claims of every document 
possessing a plausible claim to be investigated, which 
liistory has preserved of the transactions of the first 
century; and not so much as one single passage, purport- 


Gibbon , chap. 16. 






EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


593 


ing to have been written at any time within the first hun¬ 
dred years, can be produced from any independent author¬ 
ity whatever, to show the existence at or before that time 
of such a person as Jesus Christ, or of such a set of men 
as could be accounted to be his disciples. 

After the many forgeries and interpolations that have 
been detected in the texts of authors of high repute, nay 
the forging of whole books and palming them upon authors 
of established reputation, for the purpose of kidnapping 
their respectability into the service of Christianity, and 
fathering them with admissions, which they never made 
nor intended ; it would have been next to a miracle, if the 
text of the great prince of historians, had been suffered to 
come down to us unengrafted with a suitable recognition 
of the existence of Christ, and of Christians : or if, after, 
the shrewdest talent and profoundest learning were en¬ 
gaged in the service, the important business of managing 
such an interpolation had been left to hands that could not 
have done it better than to fear detection from any ordi¬ 
nary powers of criticism. 

Eusebius had christianized Josephus ; it remained for 
shrewder masters of criticism, and the more accomplished 
scholars and infidels of a later age to perform a similar re¬ 
generation upon the text of Tacitus. 

This illustrious Roman inherils immortal renown as an 
historian, for his beautiful description of the manners of 
the ancient Germans, his Life of Agricola, his History of 
Rome, from the time of the emperor Galba to the death 
of Domitian ; and lastly for his Annals, beginning at 
Tiberius, and terminating with the death of Nero. He 
was born about a. d. 62, and wrote his Annals very late in 
life, as nearly as probable conjecture can bring us, about 
a. d. 107. 

The first publication of any part of the Annals of 
Tacitus, was by Johannes de Spire, at Venice, in the 
year 1468. His imprint being made from a single manu¬ 
script, in his own power and possession only, and purport¬ 
ing to have been written in the eighth century. From 
this manuscript, which none but the most learned would 
know of, none but the most curious would investigate, and 
none but the most interested would transcribe, or be 
allowed to transcribe ; and that too, in an age and 
country, when and where, to have suggested but a doubt 
against the authenticity of any document which the 
authorities had once chosen to adopt as evidence of 


394 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


Christianity, would have subjected the conscientious scep¬ 
tic to the faggot; from this, all other manuscripts and 
printed copies of the works of Tacitus are derived : and 
consequently in the forty-fourth section of the fifteenth 
book of these Annals, we have 

THE CELEBRATED PASSAGE. 

After a description of the terrible fire at Rome in the 
tenth of Nero, and the sixty-fourth of our Lord, in which 
a large part of the city was consumed ; and an account of 
the order given for rebuilding and beautifying it, and the 
methods used to appease the anger of the Gods : Tacitus 
adds,* “ But neither all the human help, nor the liberality 
of the Emperor, nor all the atonements presented to 
the Gods, availed to abate the infamy he lay under of 
having ordered the city to be set on fire. To suppress, 
therefore, this common rumour, Nero procured others to 
be accused, and inflicted exquisite punishments upon 
those people who were held in abhorrence for their crimes, 
and were commonly known by the name of Christians. 
They had their denomination from Christus , who, in the reign of 
Tiberius , was put to death as a criminal by the procurator 
Pontius Pilate. This pernicious superstition, though 
checked for awhile, broke out again, and spread, not over 
Judea, the source of this evil, but reached the city 
also : whither flow from all quarters all things vile and 
shameful, and where they find shelter and encouragement. 
At first, they only were apprehended who confessed them¬ 
selves of that sect; afterwards, a vast multitude discovered 
by them ; all which were condemned, not so much for the 
crime of burning the city, as for their enmity to man¬ 
kind. Their executions were so contrived as to expose 

* “ Sed non ope humana, non largitionibus Principis, aut Deum placamen- 
tis, decedebat infamia, quin jussum incendium crederetur. Ergo abolendo 
rumori Nero subdidit reos, et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit, quos per flagitia in- 
visos, vulgus Christianos appellabat. Auctor nominis ejus Christus, Tiberio 
imperitante, per procuratorern Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat. Re- 
pressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursus erumpebat non modo per Ju- 
daeam, originem ejus mali, sed per Urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia, 
aut pudenda, confluunt, celebranturque. Igitur primo correpti qui fatebantur, 
deinde indicio eorum, multitudo ingens, haud perinde in crimine incendii, quam 
odio humani generis, convicti sunt. Et pereuntibus addita ludibria, ut ferarurn 
tergis contecti, laniatu canum interirent, aut crucibus atfixi, aut flanmiandi, 
atque ubi defecisset dies, in usum nocturni luminis urerentur Hortos suos ei 
spectaculo Nero obtulerat, et Circense ludicrum edebat, habitu aurigae permixtus 
plebi, vel curriculo insistens. Unde quarnquam adversus sontes et novissima ex- 
empla meritos, miseratio oriebatur, tamquam non utilitate publica, sed in saevitiam 
unius absunierentur.” 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


395 


them to derision and contempt. Some were covered ove~ 
with the skins of wild beasts, and torn to pieces by dogs , 
some were crucified : others, having been daubed over 
with combustible materials, were set up as lights in the 
night-time, and thus burned to death. Nero"made use 
of his own gardens as a theatre on this occasion, and also 
exhibited the diversions of the Circus, sometimes stand¬ 
ing in the crowd as a spectator, in the habit of a chariot¬ 
eer ; at other times driving a chariot himself ; till at length 
these men, though really criminal and deserving exempla¬ 
ry punishment, began to be commisserated as people who 
were destroyed, not out of regard to the public welfare, 
but only to gratify the cruelty of one man.” 

I consider this celebrated passage to be a forgery or 
interpolation upon the text of Tacitus, from no disposi¬ 
tion, I am sure, to give offence to those who may have as 
good reasons, and probably better, for esteeming it to be 
unquestionably genuine, from no wish to deduct from 
Christianity one tittle or iota of its fair or probable evi¬ 
dence, but from a consideration solely of the facts of the 
case , which I here subjoin ; and which, if they shall have 
.ess weight in the judgment of the reader than of the 
author : the reader will reap the advantage of holding 
the opposite conclusion, not only in concurrence with the 
decision of the wisest and best men in the world, but on 
that surer ground of satisfaction with which every con¬ 
viction is held, after men have been so faithful to them¬ 
selves as to weigh the objections that can be alleged 
against it. 

The facts of the case are these— 

1. This passage, which would have served the purpose 
of Christian quotation better than any other in all tne 
writings of Tacitus, or of any Pagan writer whatever, is 
not quoted by any of the Christian Fathers. 

2. It is not quoted by Tertullian, though he had read 
md largely quotes the works of Tacitus ; 

3. And though his argument immediately called for the 
ase of this quotation with so loud a voice,* that his omis- 

* In his celebrated Apology, Tertullian is so hot upon the scent of this passage, 
that his missing it had it been in existence, is almost miraculous. In Chap¬ 
ter 5 of this Apology, he says, “ Consult your, histories, there you will 
find that Nero was the first to draw the bloody and imperial sword against this sect 
then rising at Koine.” Yet even here, he stumbles not on this famous pas- 


396 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


sion of it, if it had really existed, amounts to a violent im¬ 
probability. 

4. This Father has spoken of Tacitus in a way that it 
is absolutely impossible that he should have spoken of him, 
had his writings contained such a passage.* 

5. It is not quoted by Clemens Alexandrians, who set 
himself entirely to the work of adducing and bringing to¬ 
gether all the admissions and recognitions which Pagan 
authors had made of the existence of Christ or Christians 
before his time. 

6. It has been no where stumbled on by the laborious 
and all-seeking Eusebius, who could by no possibility have 
missed of it, and whom it would have saved from the 
labour and infamy of forging the passage of Josephus : 
of adducing the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, 
and the Sibylline verses ; of forging a divine revela¬ 
tion from the God Apollo, in attestation of Christ’s ascen¬ 
sion into heaven ; and innumerable other of his pious and 
holy cheats. 

7. There is no vestige nor trace of its existence any 
where in the world before the 15th century. 

8. It rests then entirely upon the fidelity of a single in¬ 
dividual ; 

9. And he, having the ability, the opportunity, and the 
strongest possible incitement of interest to induce him to 
introduce the interpolation. 

10. The passage itself, though unquestionably the work 
of a master, and entitled to be pronounced the chef 
(Vceuvre of the art : betrays the penchant of that delight in 
blood and in descriptions of bloody horrors, as peculiarly 
characteristic of the Christian disposition, as it was abhor¬ 
rent to the mild and gentle mind and highly cultivated 
taste of Tacitus. 

11. It bears a character of exaggeration, and trenches 
on the laws of rational probability, which the writings of 
Tacitus are rarely found to do. 

12. It may be met and overthrown by the concussion of 
directly conflicting evidence of equal weight of challenge ; 
a shock to which no statements of Tacitus besides are 
liable. 

13. It is not conceivable that Nero, who, with all his 

* After other quotations from the writings of Tacitus, Tertullian continues his 
argument: “ And indeed that same Cornelius Tacitus, that most prating of all 
liars , in the same history relates, ‘ At enim Cornelius Tacitus sane ille mendacio 
rum loquacissimus in rad. hist. ref. &e."— Citat. Kortholt , p. 272. 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


391 


crimes, was at least not safe in the commission of crime ; 
and paid at last the forfeit of his life, not to private re¬ 
venge, but to public justice, for less heinous enormities ; 
should have been so ludibund in cruelty, and wanton in 
wickedness, as this passage would represent him. 

14. it is not conceivable, that such good and innocent 
people as the primitive Christians must be supposed to be, 
should have provoked so great a degree of hostility, or 
that they should not sufficiently have endeared themselves 
to their fellow-citizens, to prevent the possibility of their 
being so treated. 

15. It is not conceivable, that so just a man as Tacitus 
unquestionably was, could have spoken of the professors 
of a purer religion than the world before had seen, as really 
criminal, and deserving exemplary punishment. 

16. The whole account is falsified by the text of the 
New Testament, in which Nero is spoken of as the Minis¬ 
ter of God for good ; and the Christians have the assurance 
of God himself, that so long as they were followers of that 
which was good, there was none that would harm them.— 
See 1 Peter iii. 13. 

17. It is falsified by the apology of Tertullian, and the 
far more respectable testimony of Melito, Bishop of Sar¬ 
dis, who explicitly states that the Christians, up to his 
time, the third century, had never been victims of perse¬ 
cution : and that it was in provinces lying beyond the 
boundaries of the Roman Empire, and not in Judea, that 
Christianity originated.—See their testimonies in this 
Diegesis. 

18. Not a disposition to reject Christianity, but an 
eagerness and promptness to run after and embrace it, 
has in all ages been the constitutional cacoethes of the 
human mind. 

19. Tacitus has in no other part of his writings made the 
least allusion to Christ or Christians. 

20. The use of this passage as a part of the Evidences 
of the Christian Religion, is absolutely modern. 


SUETONIUS, A. D. 110. 

C. Suetonius Tranquillus, a. d. 110, a Roman histo¬ 
rian, in his life of Claudius, who reigned from a. d. 41 
to 54 ; says, that “ he drove the Jews, who, at the sug 
gestion of Krestus , were constantly rioting , out of Rome. 4 

* Judasos impulsore Chresto, aasidue tumultuantes Roma expulit. 

35 



398 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


Orosius, a Christian writer of the fifth century, who 
quotes the passage, does not pretend to know whether it 
was the Christians or Jews who were thus expelled. 
Notwithstanding the absurdity of the supposition of this 
Chrestus being Christ, and of Christ heading riots in 
Rome ; this passage has served its generation as Chris¬ 
tian Evidence. Dr. Lardner, however, admits that 
“ learned men are not satisfied that this relates to the 
Christians.” 

2. In his life of Nero, Suetonius says, that “ The Chris¬ 
tians,* a race of men of a new and villainous, wicked or 
magical superstition, were visited with punishment.” I 
hope it. may not offend them, to hope that neither does 
this relate to Christians. 

3. In his life of Vespasian, he says, “ There had been 
for a long time all over the East, a notion firmly believed, 
that it was in the fates (in the decrees or books of the 
fates) that at that time, some which came out of Judea 
should obtain the Empire of the world.” 

This is as far as Paley, Doddridge, and other sophis¬ 
tical Christian Evidence manufacturers, find it convenient 
to quote the passage. The finishing would spoil their use 
of it—this it is, 

“ By the event it appeared that that prediction related 
to the Roman Emperor. The Jews, applying it to them¬ 
selves, went into a rebellion.”f 

Josephus himself calls this an ambiguous oracle, and 
admits its application to Vespasian only, though found in 
their sacred Scriptures.:); So little will the passage serve 
the cause in which it has been enlisted. 

There is no reasonable ground for thinking that by 
Chrestus , Suetonius meant Christus. Chrestus itself is a 
proper name for any good man. And by a most curious 
coincidence with the orthography of Suetonius, we find 
ihe earliest Fathers actually punning on the word ; holding 
it as entirely indifferent whether they were called Chris¬ 
tians, or Christians ; giving equally absurd and riddle me 
ree reasons for either the one name or the other, but never 

* Afflicti suppliciis Christiani, genus hominum super stitionis novae et male- 
ficoe. 

t Percrebuerat Oriente toto, vetus et constant opinio, esse in fatis, at eo tem¬ 
pore Judea profeeti rerum potirentur. Id de Irnperatore Romano, quantum eventu 
postea patuit, predictum Judiae ad se trahentes rebellarunt. 4. 

t Xytjouug auiptftoXoc ouoimg sv rotg itQotg tvytjusrog yQuuuaa it, te Saga myt 
Ttjv &vsorceoia\u ro Xoyiov tjytuoviap, et/iodeidtvtog tn t indaiug aviexpertoqug .— 
Jos. de Bell. 1. 6, c. 5, sect. 4. 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


399 

distinctly pretending 1 to derive that name from any par¬ 
ticular Christus, or Chrestus, who had had a real 
existence, and been the founder of their sect. The mere 
lotacism or change of the long e into i, or i into e, 
often occasioned the substitution of the one word for the 
other. 

1. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch ; Acts 
xi. 26, that is, unquestionably, they assumed not the name 
themselves, but it was given them by the Gentiles, in 
whose sense of it, consequently, the real meaning of it is 
to be found. 

2. Justin Martyr, in his account of the name, which he 
gives in his apology to Antoninus Pius, thus puns away 
all possible reference to the name of Christ as the founder 
of a sect. “ We are called Christians. So then we are 
the best of men (Chrestians), and it can never be just to 
hate what is (chrest) good and kind.* * * § 

3. Theophilus of Antioch, after a long string of puns 
upon Christus, and Chrestus; thinks that Christus, and 
not Chrestus should be the word, because of the sublime 
significancy of Christus, which signifies “ the sweet, and 
agreeable ; and most useful, and never to be laughed at 
article of pomatum, f 

“ What use of a ship (he argues) unless it be besmeared ? 
What tower or palace would be elegant or useful unless 
it were greased ?” “ What man comes into life or enters 

into a conflict, without being anointed ? What piece of 
work could be considered finished, if it were not oiled ? 
The air itself and every creature under heaven, is as it were 
anointed with light and spirit. Undoubtedly we are called 
Christians for this reason, and none other , than because we 
are anointed with the oil of God.”J 

Tertullian,§ Clemens Alexandrinus,|| and St. Jerom,1F 
abound in the same strain.—Every where we meet with 
puns and conundrums on the name ; no where with a ves- 

* Xmcnavoi sncu xaTt]yogovus-&a, to Ss jcqtjotov uiOBiO&ai ov dixator — XgtjOTO- 
TciToi vtcxq/ousy.—J ustini Apol. 

t Oti to xyicfTor rjdv xcu svxgt]OTov xai axccTayskaOTOv soti. — x. r. X. lib. 1, Ab 
Autolycum. 

X ToiyaQovv Vjfistg tovtov sivsxsv xaXovys&a XQ iartctv0l i 0Tt XQ ,0 . ut ^ a £ Xcuo> 
©to i;.— Ibidem. 

§ Cum perperam Christianus pronunciatur, (puta Chrestianus) de suavitate vel 
jenignitate compositum nomen est.— Terbul. 

II Q,uia apud Graecos, x°V nrory ^ utrumque sonat. Virtus est. lenls blanda tran- 
quilla et omnium bonorum consortio.— Hieronym. in Gal. v. 22. 

tT sivTixa oi stg x^WTor nsniOTtvxoTsg xQtjOTot r* soi xai XsyovTcu .— Clementi* 
Strommat 


400 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


tige of the real existence of a person to whom the name 
was distinctively appropriate. 


PLINY, a. d. 110. 

Plinj the younger, was born a. d. 61. lie held impor¬ 
tant civil and religious offices under the Roman Govern¬ 
ment, was the personal friend of Tacitus, and was in the 
year 106 sent by the emperor Trajan as proconsul into the 
province of Bithynia, from whence he wrote the annexed 
letter : 

“ *Pliny to the emperor Trajan wisheth health and hap¬ 
piness.—it is my constant custom, sir, to refer myself to 
you in all matters concerning which I have any doubt : 
for who can better direct me when I hesitate, or instruct 
me when I am ignorant. I have never been present at 
any trials of Christians; so that I knew not well what is 
the subject matter of punishment, or of enquiry, or what 
strictness ought to be used in either. Nor have I been 
a little perplexed to determine whether any difference 
ought to be made on account of age, or whether the young 
and tender, and the full grown and robust, ought to be 
treated all alike ; whether repentance should entitle to 
pardon, or whether all who have once been Christians 
ought to be punished, though they are now no longer so ; 
whether the name itself, although no crimes be detected, 
or crimes only belonging to the name, ought to be punish¬ 
ed. Concerning all these things I am in doubt. 

“ In the mean time, I have taken this course with all 
who have been brought before me, and have been accused 
as Christians. I have put the question to them, whether 
they were Christians ? Upon their confessing to me that 
they were, I repeated the question a second and a third 
time, threatening also to punish them with death. Such 
as still persisted, I ordered away to be punished ; for it 

* Solenne est mihi, Dornine, omnia de quibus dubito, ad te referre : quis enim 
potest rr.eiius vel cunctationern mearn regere, vel ignorantiam meam instruere. 
Cogritionibus de Christianis interfu! nunquarn : ideo vel quid vel quatenus aut 
pnnifi soleat aut quseri, nescio. Nec etiam hsesitavi mediocriter, sitne aliquod dis- 
criinen eetatum, an quamlibet teneri nihil a robustioribus different: deturne pceni- 
tentiae venia, an ei qui prorsus Christianus fuit, desTsse non prosit: nornen ipsum, 
otiainsi flagitiis careat, an flagitia cohaerentia nomini puniantur. Interim in iis qui 
ad me tanquamChristiani deferebantur, hunc sum sequutus modum. Interrogavi ipsos, 
an essent Christiani: confitentes iterum ac tertio interrogavi, supplicio minatus ; 
perse verantes duci jussi. Neque enim dubitabam, qualecunque esset quod fateren- 
tur, pervieaciam certe, et inflexibilem obstinationern debere puniri. Fueruntalii 
eimilis amentiae: quos, quia cives Romani eraat, annotavi in urbem remittendos. 



EXTERNAL EVIDENCE 


401 


was no doubt with me, whatever might be the nature of 
their opinions, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy 
ought to be punished. There* were others of the same 
infatuation, whom, because they are Roman citizens, 1 
•have noted down to be sent to the city. In a short time, 
the crime spreading itself, even whilst under persecution, 
as is usual in such cases, divers sorts of people came in 
my way. An information was presented to me, without 
mentioning the author, containing the names of many 
persons, who, upon examination, denied that they were 
Christians, or had ever been so; who repeated after me 
an invocation of the gods, and, with wine and frankin¬ 
cense, made supplication to your image, which for that 
purpose I had caused to be brought and set before them, 
together with the statues of the deities. Moreover, they 
reviled the name of Christ. None of which things, as is 
said, they who are really Christians can by any means 
be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper 
to discharge. 

“ Others were named by an informer, who at first con¬ 
fessed that they were Christians, but afterwards denied 
it: and some, acknowledging that they had been, declared 
that they had relinquished the profession, some above 
three years ago, some a longer time, and several more 
than twenty years. All these paid the accustomed divine 
honours both to your statue and to the images of the 
gods; and they also reviled Christ. They moreover de¬ 
clared that the whole of what was laid to their charge, 
whether it were a crime or a mere error, consisted in this: 
that they made it a practice, on a stated day, to meet 
together before day-light,* to sing hymns with responses 
to Christ as a god, and to bind themselves by a solemn 
institution, not to any wrong act, but that they would not 

Mox ipso tractu, ut fieri solet, difFundente se crimine, plures species inciderunt. Pro¬ 
positus est libellus, sine auctore, multorum noinina continens, qui negarent se esse 
Christianos, aut fuisse; quurn, prseeunte me, deos appeliarent, et imagini tu®, quatn 
propter hoc jusseram cum simulacris numinum afferri, thure ac vino supplicarent ; 
pneterea maledicerent Christo: quorum nihil cogi posse dicuntur, qui sunt revc-ra 
Christiani. Ergo dimittendos putavi. Alii ab indice nominati, esse se Christinaos 
dixerunt, et mox negaverunt: fuisse quidem, sed desisse, quidam ante trienniurn, 
quidam ante plures annos, non nemo etiam ante viginti quoque. Omnes et imagi- 
nem tuam, deorumque simulacra venerati sunt; ii et Christo maledixerunt. Atfirnu- 

* If this letter be genuine, these nocturnal meetings were what no prucen 
government could allow ; they fully justify the charges of Csecilius in Minutiua 
Felix, of Celsus in Origen, and of Lucian, that the primitive Christians were a 
skulking, light-shunning, secret, mystical, freemasonry sort of confederation, 
against the general welfare and peace of society. 

35 * 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE* 


402 

commit any thefts or robberies or acts of unchastity, that 
they would never break their word, that they would never 
violate’a trust; that, when these observances were finished, 
they separated, and afterwards came together again to a 
common and innocent repast; but that they had given 
over this last practice after my edict, in which, according 
to your orders, I forbad social meetings. Upon these 
declarations, I thought it requisite to get at the entire 
truth by putting to the torture two women who were 
called deaconesses: but I discovered nothing beyond an 
austere, an excessive superstition. Upon the whole, 
therefore, I determined to adjourn the trials, in order to 
consult you: for the case appears to me to demand my so 
doing, particularly on account of the great number of the 
persons who are in danger of suffering. For many of all 
ages and every rank, of both sexes likewise, are accused, 
and will be accused. Nor has the contagion of this super¬ 
stition seized ciiies only, but the villages and the country. 
It however, still seems to me, that this evil may easily be 
restrained. For it is assuredly, sufficiently obvious, that 
it is upon the decline. The temples which were a little 
while ago almost deserted, begin to be resorted to, as 
usual: and victims, which hitherto hardly found a pur¬ 
chaser, are now in full request: whence you may natu 
rally suppose, that a multitude of men might be reclaimed, 
if allowance were granted to their repentance.”— Pliny's 
Epistle , book 10, letter 97. 

However little room for doubt of the genuineness and au¬ 
thenticity of this letter there may seem to be, we ought not 
to have known that the name of Christians was common to 

i 

bant autem, hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae, vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato 
die ante lucem convenire; carmenque Christo, quasi Deo, dicere seeum invicem; 
seque Sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne turta, ne latrocinia, ne 
adultefia committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositym appellati abnegarent: qui- 
bus peractis morem sibi discedendi fuisse, rursusque coeundi ad capiendum cibum, 
promiscuum tarnen, et innoxiurn: quod ipsum facere desisse post edictum meurn, 
quo secundum mandata tua hetaerias esse vetueram. Q.uo magis nfecessariuin cre- 
didi, ex duabus ancillis quae ministrae, dicebantur, quid esset veri et per torrnenta 
quaerere. Sed nihil aliud inveni, quam superstitionem pravam et imtnodicam. Ideo- 
que, dilata cognitione, ad consulendum te decurri. Visaest enir: mihi res digna con- 
sultatione, maxime propter periclitantium numerurn. Multi enim onriis aetatis, 
omnis ordinis, utriusque sexiis etiam, vocanturin periculutn, et vocabuntur. Neque 
enim civitates tantum, sed vicos etiam atque agros superstitionis istius contagio per- 
vagata est: quae videtur sisti et corrigi posse. Certe satis constat, prope jam deso- 
lata templa coepisse celebrari, et sacra solennia diu intermissa repeti: passimque 
vaenire victimas, quarum adhuc rarissimus emptor inveniebatur. Ex quo facile est 
opinari, quae turba hominuin emendari possit, si sit posnitentiae locus .—Plinii 
Epistolar. lib. 70, Epist. 97. 



EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


403 


the worshippers of the god Serapis: and the name of 
Christ common to the whole rabblement of gods, kings, 
and priests; that the practices described in this letter, are 
none other than were common to innumerable sects of 
cracked-brained pagan visionaries; and that the observers 
of these practices were generally found to be such despe¬ 
rately wicked characters as are ever prompt to turn faith 
into faction, and religion into rebellion; so that no vigilant 
and prudent magistrate could be indifferent to their mach¬ 
inations, or not feel himself bound to use all the powers 
with which the laws invested him, to sift the principles 
and grounds of their combination, and to make himself tho¬ 
roughly acquainted not only with all that they professed, 
but with their arcana interiora , the more interior secrets, 
policy, and purpose of their institution. We cannot ima¬ 
gine, that so wise and good a man, so just and candid a 
magistrate, who evidently wished to make the best of the 
case for the accused party, would conceal from his friend 
and master, Trajan, any thing in their favour that had 
come to his knowledge/ 

Did they tell him, then, that they were the followers of 
a religion which had u God for its author, happiness for 
its end, and truth without any mixture of error for its 
matter?” 

Did they tell him that they were the disciples of one, 
who then, and as yet within the memory of man, had a 
real existence, had taught a purer morality, had wrought 
miracles, had died, and risen again to life? 

Did they lay down the important distinction between 
the “ teacher sent from God;” and the innumerable Christs, 
Messiahs, Emmanuels, Logoses, Words, and Messengers 
of the heathen mythology, in that he was the object of 
history; they the figments of romance, that “he was real, 
they an empty name.” 

Did they so much as mention the name of Jesus of Naz¬ 
areth? Did they refer to one single circumstance of his 
life as a man, or drop an enigma that could set the mind 
to guess at the Galilean rather than the Stagyrite? or 
make it more probable, that they meant the man of Naz¬ 
areth rather than the Cacodemon of the Forest? No! No! 
nothing of the sort! not a text, not an iota, not a vestige 
of Christianity in her. We have the name of Christ, 
and nothing else but the name, where the name of Apol¬ 
lo or Bacchus would have filled up the sense quite as 
well. 


404 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


It is not to be concealed, however, that the literati of 
Germany have maintained that this celebrated letter is 
another instance to he added to the long list of Christian 
forgeries: and that the more learned German divines and 
critics have pretty generally given it up. The learned 
Dr. Sender, of Leipsic, adduces nine arguments against its 
authenticity,* * * § is supported by Corrode,f and was replied 
to by Haveisaasj: and Gierig.§ 

My room will not admit my entering on the merits of 
this controversy; and as, after all I have heard of it, I 
am not disposed to admit the passage to be fairly con¬ 
quered, there is the less occasion for my doing so. I still 
think it may be genuine, and that mainly upon the strength 
of its amounting to so very little or nothing in weight of 
evidence, even if its genuineness were unquestionable. 

I leave the reader to give what consideration he may to 
the objections to the claims of this Epistle, which I sub¬ 
join without the advantage of the lights Dr. Semler may 
have cast on the subject. 

1. The undeniable fact that the-first Christians were the 
greatest liars and forgers that had ever been in the whole 
world, and that they actually stopt at nothing. 

2. The undeniable fact that it was not the ignorant and 
vulgar among them, but their best scholars, the shrewdest, 
cleverest, and highest in rank and talent, who were the 
practitioners of these forgeries.|| 

3. The flagrant atopism of Christians, being found in 
the remote province of Bythinia, before they had acquired 
any notoriety in Rome.H 

4. The inconsistency of religious persecution, with the 
just and philosophic character of the Roman government. 

5. The inconsistency of the supposition that so just and 
moral a people as the primitive Christians are assumed to 


* Neue Versuche die Kirchen histone der ersten Jahrunderte inehr aufzuklaren: 
by Jo. Salom. Semler, Leipsic, 1788, Fesc. 1, pp. 119—246. 

t Beytragi zur Beforderung des verstnuftigew Denkens in der Religion, 

t Vertheidigung der Plinischen Brife uber die Arristen gegen die Einwendungen 
der H. D. Sender, Gottingen, 1788. 

§ Gierig, in his edition of the Letters of C. Plinius Secund. Leipsic, 1802.— 
Gierig acknowledges the meritorious diligence and fidelity of Semler, in examining 
the credibility of the monuments of Antiquity. The German divines have almost 
the exclusive merit of the faculty, of being just and civil to their theological oppo¬ 
nents; but their orthodoxy is proportionably suspicious. 

II “ Origen actually embodied fraud into a system, practised it with the approba¬ 
tion of his fellows, and gave it the technical name of Economia, by which it has 
gone ever since.”— Higgins's Celtic Druids. 

IT “ Q,uo cuncta uudique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebrantnrque!** 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


405 


have been, should have been the first to provoke the Ro¬ 
man government to depart from its universal maxims of 
toleration, liberality, and indifference. 

6. The inconsistency of such conduct with the humane 
and dignified character of Pliny. 

7. The use of the torture to extort confession—torturing 
and tormenting being peculiarly and characteristically 
Christian. 

8. The choice of women to be the subjects of this tor¬ 
ture; when the ill-usage of women was, in like manner, 
abhorrent to the Roman character, and peculiarly and 
characteristically Christian. 

9. The repetition of this letter in the one ascribed to 
Tiberianus, being precisely such a repetition as we find of 
tiie famous forgery of Josephus, in the Persic History of 
Christ, by Jeremy Xavier.* A forgery having once been 
successful, it should seem the Christians must needs ply it 
again. So here is a second throw at the same game. 

“ Tiberianus, Governor of Syria, to the Emperor Trajan. 

“ I am quite tired with punishing and destroying the 
Galikeans, or those of the sect called Christians, accord¬ 
ing to your orders; yet they never cease to profess volun¬ 
tarily what they are, and to offer themselves to death. 
Wherefore, I have laboured, by exhortations and threats, 
to discourage them from daring to confess to me that they 
are of that sect. Yet in spite of all persecution, they con¬ 
tinue still to do it. Be pleased therefore, to let me know 
what your highness thinks proper to be done with them.’ 5 
Colelr. Patr. Apostol. vol. 2, p. 181; Middleton citante , p. 201. 

No rational man will doubt the forgery of this pretend¬ 
ed epistle, which though thrown earlier in time, is a pal¬ 
pable repetition of the good hit that had been made in the 
epistle, ascribed to Pliny. 

I have no doubt at all of the forgery of the passage of 
Tacitus. But if the objections which I have stated, or any 
other, be really fatal to this of Pliny, I would recommend 
my reverend opponents and all other assertors that the 
historical evidences of Christianity are unassailable, to 
curse and swear, and storm, and plunge, and persecute; to 
revile, defame, and injure their opponents as much as they 

* Extnt etiam in Historia Christi, Persice scripta ab Hieronymo Xaverio, Epis* 
tola Pilati ad Imp. Tiberium, quam confinxisse videtur Xaverius e loco celebri qui 
de Christo legitur, lib. 18. Antiquitatum Josephi, c. 4. Nullius est epistola haec vel 
fidei vel autoritatis .—Fabricii Codex Apocryphus, tom. 1. p. 301. a. d. 1703, 
Hamburg!. 


406 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


possibly can, to represent them as miserably ignorant, as 
desperately wicked, as fools, liars, madmen, and idiots; 
but above all, to treat both them and their writings, with 
the most sovereign contempt.—’Tis the best they can 
make of their bad bargain. 


EPICTETUS, A. D. 1 1 1 . 

A slave, in body lame, as Irus poor, 

Yet to the Gods was Epictetus dear.* 

He is placed by Lardner about a. d. 109, and, in his 
Enchiridion , or Manual of Moral Virtue, occurs the single 
allusion which may be supposed to be contained in the 
sentence here subjoined: 

u So it is possible that a man may arrive at this temper 
and become indifferent to these things from madness, or 
from habit, as the Galileans.”! 

In Dr. Lardner’s collection of the Evidences of the 
Christian Religion, this mode of expression is of sufficient 
consequence to be introduced with his remark, I should 
rather think that Christians are intended, p. 49. 


PLUTARCH, A. D. 140. 

In his dialogue de defectu Oraculorum , relates a strange 
story about a man being divinely admonished to cry out 
“ The great Pan is dead.” Huet (and other equally 
learned and impartial Christian evidence hunters) suppose 
that hereby the death of Christ, who is the true pan, the 
parent of all things, and the author of all nature, was no¬ 
tified to heathen people. 


JUVENAL, A. D. 110. 

The Roman satirical poet, in his first satire, has three 
ines, sufficient to supply a possible allusion to the suffer¬ 
ings of the primitive Christians, and a frightful vignette 
to the congenial taste of the admirers of the pocket edi¬ 
tion of Paley’s Evidences. 

“ Describe Tigellinus, and you shall suffer the same 
punishment with those who stand burning in their own 

* This distich, in Greek verse, is generally attached to the portraits of this orna 
ment of the human race. 

t Ena usv vno iianag ptv dwarat rig ovto iiari^rjvai 7igog t avia tj mo eSov( 
to; oi rai.ii.aioi> 





EXTERNAL EVIDEIfCE. 


40' 


flame, their head being held up by a stake fixed to their 
chin, till they make a long stream of blood and melted sui- 
phur on the ground .”*—Paleifs rendering. 


THE EMPEROR ADRIAN, A. D. 134. 

The letter of the Emperor Adrian to his brother-in-law Servianus , 
written in the year 134, and preserved in Flavius Vopicus , who 
flourished about a . d. 300. 

t 44 Egypt, which you commended to me, my dearest 
Servianus, I have found to be wholly fickle and inconstant, 
and continually wafted about by every breath of fame 
The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are 
devoted to the God Serapis , who (I find) call themselves 
the bishops of Christ. There is here no ruler of a Jewish 
synagogue, no Samaritan, no Presbyter of the Christians, 
who is not either an astrologer, a soothsayer, or a minister 
to obscene pleasures. The very Patriarch himself, should 
he come into Egypt, would be required by some to worship 
Serapis , and by others to worship Christ. They have, how¬ 
ever, but one God, and it is one and the self-same whom 
Christians, Jews, and Gentiles alike adore, i. e. money.” 

Coincident with this unsophisticated testimony, is the 
never-refuted charge of Zozimus, that the Emperor Con¬ 
stantine learned the Christian religion from an Egyptian ;J 
and the fact admitted by Socrates, that the cross was found 
in the temple of Serapis,§ and claimed by his worshippers 
as the proper symbol of their religion. 


THE EMPEROR MARCUS AURELIUS ANTONINUS, THE PHI¬ 
LOSOPHER, A. D. 180. 

In the eleventh of the twelve books of his meditations, 
speaks of a becoming fortitude of soul, as wholly of a 
superior character to that mere obstinacy, as of the 

* PoneTigellinum, taeda lucebis in ilia 
Qua stantes ardent, qui fixo gutture fumant 
Et latum media sulcum deducis arena.— Juv. Sat. 1. v. 155. 

t Adrianus Aug. Serviano Cos. S. “ JEgyptum quam mihi laudabus Servians 
carissime, totam didicilevem, pendulara et ad omnia famae momenta voiitantern. 
I Hi qui Sera pirn colunt, Christiani sunt : et devoti sunt Serapi, qui se Christi epis- 
copos dicunt. Nemo illic Archisynagogus Judaeorum, nemo Samarites, nemo 
Christianorum presbyter,—non Mathematicus, non Aruspex, Aliptes. Ipse ille 
patriarcha quum in iEgyptum venerit ab aliis Serapidem adorare, ab aliis cogitur 
Christum . . . . Unus illis Deus est hunc Judaei, hunc omnes ^eneran- 

tur et gentes. 

t See the Chapter on Constantine. 

§ See the passage, p. 205 in this Diegf.sis 




408 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


Christians. The single phrase oi /mnavog, u like the Chris¬ 
tians ,” is the whole amount of this testimony. Nor is it 
certain whether by the name of Christians, he means the 
worshippers of Christ, or of Serapis. Below is the whole 
context.* 


M. VALERIUS MARTIALIS, A. D. 110. 

Contemporary with Juvenal, has an epigram, the gist of 
which, is to ridicule the folly of givingthe credit of rational 
fortitude to those fool-hardy wretches that rush on volun¬ 
tary sufferings, and who would stand to be baked in ovens, 
or hold their limbs over red hot coals, for the purpose of 
exciting sympathy ; and who, it is assumed, could be no¬ 
body else than the primitive Christians. 

“In rnatutina nuper spectatus arena 
Mucius, imposuit qui sua membra focis 
Si patiens fortisque tibi durusque videtur 
Abderitan<E pectoie. plebis habes ; 

Nam cum dicatur tunica praesente molesta 
Ure manum : plus est dicere non facio.” 

As late you saw in early morning’s show, 

Mucius, the fool, on red ashes glow. 

If brave and patient, thence, he seems to thee. 

Thou art, methinks, as great a fool as he ; 

For there, in robe of pitch, the fire prepared, 

The wretch would burn, because the people stared. 


LUCIUS APULEIUS, A. D. 164. 

Of Madaura, wrote a fantastical book of metamorpho 
ses, probably in principle somewhat similar to that of Ovid 
Our beaters up for evidences of the Christian religion have 
enlisted this work also ; and in a ridiculous^ story in 
which a man who was metamorphosed into an ass, and in 
that incarnation, sold to a baker,—describes his mistress, 
the baker’s wife, as a red hot virago, an adulterous, 
drunken thief, cheat, scold, and liar ; hut with all (as such 
characters generally are) peculiarly religious.f We are 
to imagine that we have some sort of evidence of the 
existence of Christianity. Dr. Lardner concludes, 44 there 
can be no doubt that Apuleius here designs to represent a 

* Ota 'tar iv y xfJv/y, y trotuog tar y$y auoXv&yvai Set xov Owuarog. Kai yroi 
aflea&tjvai, y oxtdao&yvai, y ovuuttvai .' 

To de sTOtuov tovto tva ano idtxyg xQtoswg y^/yrat ; py xara i piXyv naQUTa$iv 
ok oi /niOTiavoi, aUa XeZ.oyioptvu}g xai otuvcog xai wort xai aUov ntioat, 
arQayotdwg. 

t Pistol* ille qui, pessimam et ante cunctas mulieres longe deterrimam sortitua 
tonjugem, poenas extreinas tori larisque sustinebat; scceva sceva, vitiosa, ebriosa 




EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


409 


Christian woman.” No doubt, no doubt ! ’Tis hard to ted, 
whether Christianity or the ladies owe him the profounder 
courtesy. 

With all deference to the judgment of Dr. Lardner, 
I venture to suggest, that this passage has not the re¬ 
motest relation to that evidences for the Christian religion, 
which he wishes to bring forward. It bears a strong indi¬ 
cation of the better and more honourable rank which the 
wife held in the domestic economy, under the ancient pa¬ 
ganism, a fact which he and all other Christian advocates 
endeavour always to conceal. It indicates the prevalence 
of that better feeling towards the fair sex, which would 
have shuddered at the indelicacy of dragging virgin-mo¬ 
desty into the presence of a liquorish priest, to utter an 
enforced acknowledgment of sentiments, which, whether 
felt or not, were never meant by nature to be acknowledg¬ 
ed, and to make vows and pledges of abject subjection 
and obedience until death, beyond all measure of obliga¬ 
tion, in which any rational and intelligent being could be 
bound to one who may become false, and so deserve to 
be forsaken ; may become tyrannous, and therefore deserve 
to be hated. This undesigned discovery of the domestic 
economy under pagan auspices, is strongly corroborated 
by the fact, that among the paintings found in the ruins 
of Herculaneum, is a chaste and beautiful figure of the 
matrimonial Venus, (Venus Pronuba) holding a sceptre of 
that dominion enjoyed by the wife in domestic affairs. 
Hence as Festus under the article clavis , observes “ the 
keys were consigned to the wife, as soon as she entered 
her husband’s house. To this purpose may the custom 
of the Egyptians be observed, among whom, the wife 
ruled in the private concerns of her husband ; and accord¬ 
ingly in their marriage ceremonies, he promised to obey 
her”* Neither Christians nor Turks have ever been just 

to women. - 

LUCIANUS, A. D. 176. 

A pagan satyrist, is by far the most explicit and diffuse 
of all pagan writers, who at any time within the two first 

pervicax, pertinax, in rapinis turpibus avara, in sumptibus turpibus profusa, inimica 
fidei, hostis pudicitice. Tunc spretis atque calcati9 divinis numinibusin vicem certae 
religionis mentita sacrilega prsesumptione Dei quern praedicaret unicum conflec- 
tis, observationibus vanis fallens omnes homines, et miserum maritum decipiens, 
matutino mero, et continuo stupro corpus Mancaparat Tabs ilia rnulier miro mo 
nersequebatur odio nam et ante lucano recubans adhuc subjungi machine novitiuro 
clamabat asinum .”—Ita citat Lardnerius, Tom. 4. p. 107. 

* Univ. Mag. 1778. p. 134. 

36 



410 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


centuries, have taken notice of the existence of the Chris¬ 
tian ^ect, and of their doctrines as distinguishable in 
those early times, from any or all the other modes of piety 
—His testimony, though so much later than that of Pliny, 
is entirely corroborated by it, and of the utmost conse 
quence to the establishing of the historical fact of the 
real state of things in his time. The only reason I can 
conceive, why our Christian evidence writers have made 
so little account of this heathen testimony, is, that Chris¬ 
tian evidence writers have in general been tinctured with 
Unitarianism, and therefore, rather willing that the cause 
of Christianity should lose one of its main pillars, than that 
it should receive support from one, which, at the same 
time, demonstrates, that the doctrine of the Trinity was 
really the earliest and purest form of Christianity ; and 
consequently, whether Christianity be true or false, the 
Unitarian scheme is as unauthorised in history, as it is 
beyond all absurdities that even were in the world, the 
most disgustingly and insolently absurd. Lucian intro¬ 
duces a character as conversing with St. Paul, and learn¬ 
ing from him what his doctrine was—and even gives us a 
description of his person, as well as of the manners and 
character of the Christian sect; which after all the de¬ 
duction, that we can reasonably be required to make from 
his testimony, as being that of an enemy, retains the cor¬ 
roborating countenance of every other document on the 
subject of which we are in possession, not excepting that 
of the New Testament itself. In his dialogue, entitled 
Philopatris , under the character of Triephon, he describes 
their form of oath, as being “ by the high reigning , great , 
immortal , heavenly father , the son of the father , and the spirit 
proceeding from the father ; one in three , and three in one”* * * § 
The same diologist continues, “ I shall teach you who the 
true Panj is ; and who was before all things—for I for¬ 
merly underwent the same things as you, when that 
Galilean, ( Paul the Jlpostlety met me, that bald-headed, 
hook-nosed fellow, who went up through the air into the 
third heaven, and was there taught the best things ;§ and 
who hath regenerated us by water, and hath made us to 
walk in the steps of the blessed, and redeemed us from 
the realms of the wicked ; and I will make you if you 

* Txpi^eSovra &eov, cqifiQOTOv, UQaviwva, vtov narQog, nvtv/^a ex nar^og 

exnoQsvo^ievov, ev exTQtwv, xai ec tvog TQia. 

t Compare the tesliinony of Plutarch in this Diegesis. 

t This Parenthesis is actually found in the Latin version of Kortholt 

§ 2 Qorinth. 12. 2. 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


411 


will hear me,—a man indeed.”* The description of the 
apostolic chief of sinners, here drawn indeed by an un¬ 
friendly hand, is singularly supported by all the bas 
relievos, sculptures, and celebrated paintings of his 
person, in which, in addition to the short squabby figure, 
bald-head, beetle brows, and prodigiously large and 
hook nose, he is invariably represented as pot-bellied 
and bandy-legged. He indeed describes himself as hav¬ 
ing a particularly mean and dirty look, and a stammering 
voice ;f that he could hardly stand on his feet;f that he 
was subject to fits, and severely afilicted with a disease,! 
which cannot be spoken of but in periphrases. 

Tn his dialogue concerning the death of Perigrinus, 
Lucian speaks of the object of the Christians’ worship— 
as a crucified sophist!): Little stress is laid however, by 
Christians on this admission, though its authenticity is 
far less questionable than that of Tacitus. It is seen at 
once that this testimony does not pledge Lucian to an 
avowal of the fact of the crucifixion, but is his report of 
the report which Christians had given of themselves; as 
that of Tacitus is no more, even if it were genuine. Nei¬ 
ther Lucian nor Tacitus were believers. 

Lucian has however, in the same dialogue, a far more 
explicit testimony to the then character of Christians; he 
tells us, that “ whenever any crafty juggler, expert in his 
trade, and who knew how to make a right use of things, 
went over to the Christians, he was sure to grow rich im¬ 
mediately, by making a prey of their simplicity. ”§ 

ANCIENT WRITERS, WHOSE WORKS STILL REMAINING, WERE 
WRITTEN BETWEEN A. D. 35, AND A. D. 200. 

I. Those who have mentioned the Christians, wrote 
about:— 

a. d. 107 C. Plinius secund jun. in his 96th epistle. 
llO C. Suetonius Tranquill, in his Life of Nero. 

110 Cornel Tacitus, in his Annals 15. a. 44. 

* Eyo) yaQ at SiSugcj n to TIAN, xai Tig o 7iQwi]v navTm — Kat yaQ 7iQwt]v xayto 
TlXVTix tnaa^ov, aneq av , »/»«*<* St uoi r«Xi?.atog tvtrv/tv, uraipaXavnag t7iiQoirog 
eg tqitov aoarov aeoo^arijaag , xai Ta xaXXtara exutuafhixwg Si vSarog tjuag avexai- 
viaev eg Ta rov /uaxaQixiv t/vta naQtiSwSeiat xai ex tuiv aatfiwv /wqoiv iit]ag 
e?.ijTQ(»auTo, xai ae TTonjOo) rjv ps axeijg, en’ aXt]&eiag av&Qinnov .— Pro auctori - 
tate Kortholtus, p. 142. 

t 2 Corinth. 12. 7. ; 4 Galet. 13, ; 1 Coloss. 24. ; 2 Corinth. 11. 6. 

1 Corinth. 2. 3.; 2 Corinth. 5. 13.; 2 Corinth. 10. 10. 

t ’Tor aveaxo/LoTtiOueroir txtivov aoipiOTiji' avTvir. 

§ This passage is quoted before in the chapter on ^Esculapius. I have also be¬ 
fore quoted the testimony of Lucian, p. 376, as satisfactorily proving the 
identity of St. Paul, distinctively from this testimony to the character of Chris¬ 
tianity. 


412 


EXTERNAL EVIDENCE. 


A. D. 


138 The Emperor Adrian, in his epistle to Servianus 
130 M. Aurel Antonin, philos., in his Meditations, b. 11. 
176 Lucianus, in his dialogue on the death of Pere¬ 
grin us, and in his Philopatris. 

176 Celsus, in his u Essay on the True Word;” rest¬ 
ing the Honour of Origen. 

II. Those who are supposed by some writers on the 
Christian Evidences, to have alluded to the Christians; 
wrote about:— 

98 Dio Prusanis, in a particular phrase.* 

M. Valer Martialis, in the epigram quoted in this 
Diegesis. 

Dec jun. Juvenalis, in three lines quoted in this 
Diegesis. 

Epictetus, in a single phrase quoted in this 
Diegesis. 

Arrianus,f in the use of the same phrase. 

Lucius Apuleius, as quoted in this Diegesis. 
jElius Aristides, in the use of a particular phrase.:f 

III. Those who would be likely to refer to the Christians 
but who have not done so; wrote about:— 

a. d. 40 Philo. 

Josephus 

C. Plinius Secund, the elder.§ 

L. Ann. Seneca 
Diogenes Laertius 
Pausanias ) ^ a 

Pompon Mela \ Geographers. 

Q. Curtius Ruf. 


100 

100 

109 

140 

164 

176 


40 

79 

69 

79 

79 

79 

79 

79 

123 

140 

141 


Philosophers. 


Luc. Flor 
Appianus 
Justinus 
.ZElianus 


Historians. 


* Oi navra SiafiaXXovTtg —those who cast away every thing.— Dio Prus. 
t S2c oi FaXiXaioi —like the Galileans.— Arrian. 
t Toic er jraXaioTirt] Svas^smv —to the impious people in Palestine. 

§ Both those philosophers were living, and must have experienced the imme¬ 
diate effects, or received the earliest information of the existence of Jesus 
Christ, had such a person ever existed; their ignorance or their wilful silence 
on the subject, is not less than outrageously improbable. Whatever might be 
their dispositions with respect to the doctrines of Jesus; the miraculous dark¬ 
ness which is said to have accompanied his crucifixion, was a species of evidence 
that must have forced itself upon their senses. “ Each of these philosophers in 
a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of nature, earthquakes, 
meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity cou'd collect; 
neither of them have mentioned, or even alluded, to the miraculous darkness at 
the crucifixion.”— Gibbon. Alas! the Christian is constrained to own that omni 
potence itself, is no^-omnipotent. 



external evidence. 


413 


IV. Those who were less likely to allude to the Chris¬ 
tians, yet must have gone somewhat out of their way, on 
purpose to avoid doing so; wrote about— 
a. d. 63 Aneneus Lueanus 

64 Petronius Arbiter ) 

64 Sili.us Italicus 

65 M. Ann. Lueanus l Poets. 

65 Valerius Flaccus 

62 Aulas Perseus 

90 Papinus Statius 
100 Quinctilianus 
130 Ptolemseus 

Observe too, that in the Corpus Juris , or, whole body of 
Roman law, there is not extant one word against the 
Christians. 

In apology for this tremendous deficiency of evidence— 
Dr. Lardner pleads in mitigation of judgment, the follow¬ 
ing instance of a similar deficiency of historical evidence, 
in cases where the fact is nevertheless held to be unques¬ 
tionable. 

1. Velleius Paterculus is mentioned by no ancient 
writer except Priscian, though that historian certainly liv¬ 
ed and wrote at the time of Tiberius. 

2. M. Annaeus Seneca, the father of the philosopher is 
almost unknown. 

3. Lucianus has never mentioned Cicero in his enco¬ 
mium on Demosthenes. 

4. Maximus Tyrius (who wrote in the time of Antoninus 
Pius,) has no reference to the Roman History.—To this 
we may add:— 

That Herodotus and Thucydides have never mentioned 
the Romans. 

Here is distress indeed! To pursue the evidences of the 
Christian religion, after we have seen its incomparably 
most learned and able advocates thus striking on the 
shoals of reckless sophistry: after we have driven the 
strugglers for a grasp on historical fact, to the last trick of 
gathering together such thousand miles off may-be's of mere 
possible allusion,—and then showing us the lettered backs 
of their huge collections as “ Volumes of Evidence —would 
be driving the drift. 

If the evidences of the Christian religion, are presumed 
to be, its divine effects upon the dispositions and conduct 
36 * 


414 


MANUSCRIPTS, &C. 

of its professors; the peculiar generosity and liberality of 
Christians towards the enemies and opposers of their 
faith; their willingness to have its foundations thoroughly 
sifted and examined; their readiness at all times to ac¬ 
quaint themselves with all the objections that can be 
brought against it, by whomsoever, or in what manner 
soever, those objections maybe urged; their abhorrence 
of all acts of slander and defamation, for the sake of 
excusing themselves from the trouble of enquiry; their 
immaculate innocence, not only of persecution direct and 
overt—but of the dispositions that could possibly lead 
to persecution; their more rational piety, their more ex¬ 
alted virtue, their more diffusive benevolence. Alas! where 
are those evidences? 

We have looked for historical evidences which might 
justify a rational man to himself, in believing the Chris¬ 
tian religion to be of God. And there are none—abso¬ 
lutely none. We enquired for the moral effects which the 
prevalence of this religion through so many ages and 
countries of the world, has produced on men’s minds, and 
we find more horrors, crimes, and miseries, occasioned by 
this religion and its bad influence on the human heart, 
more sanguinary wars among nations, more bitter feuds 
and implacable heart burnings in families; more desola¬ 
tion of moral principle; more of every thing that is evil 
and wicked, than the prevalence of any vice, or of all 
vices put together, could have caused: so that the evi¬ 
dence which should make it seem probable that God had 
designed this religion to prevail among men, would only 
go to show that he had designed to plague and curse them. 
But not so; Christian, hold first! and ask thine own heart 
if thou hast not charged God foolishly. Ask thine own con¬ 
victions, whether, if a religion were the wickedest that 
ever was upon earth, and as false as it was wicked, God 
himself could give thee any more likely or fairer and suf¬ 
ficient means to emancipate thy mind from it, than the 
means thou hast here (if thou wilt use them) to discover 
the real origin, character, and evidences of Christianity. 
If thou believest there is any God at all, at any rate, thou 
should also believe that he is a God of truth , and so sure as 
he is so, so sure it is, that the pertinacious belief of any 
Ihing as true, which we might by the free exercise of our 
rational faculties, come to discover to be false, is the 
greatest sin that man can commit against him; implicit 
faith is the greatest of crimes; and* the implicit believer is 
the most wicked of mankind. 


APPENDIX 








MANUSCRIPTS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, 


416 


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418 


APPENDIX. 


ANCIENT VERSIONS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

1. NtrtyD— The Pesiiito, the most ancient Syriac ver¬ 
sion, brought into Europe, a. n. 1552. Printed at Vienna, 
at the expence of the Emperor Maximilian. 

2. The Philoxeni an, a later Syriac version, made in 
the sixth century, under the inspection of Philozenus, 
Bishop of Hierapolis. Published at Oxford, by Professor 
White, a. n. 1778. 

3. The Coptic, in the ancient dialect of the Lower 
Egypt. Still read, though it is not understood. 

4. The Sahidic, in the ancient dialect of the Upper 
Egypt. 

5. The Ethiopic, used in Abyssinia. First published at 
Rome, a. d. 1548, by three Ethiopian editors. 

6. The Armenian, made in the fifth century. No genu¬ 
ine copies in existence. 

7. The Persic, there are two of this class: neither very 
ancient; the one a translation from the Syriac, the other 
from the Greek. 

8. The Latin, sometimes in distinction, called the Italic. 
These very translations of the Greek text as it stood in 
the most ancient manuscripts, were in general use in an 
age that precedes the date of any manuscript now extant. 

9. The Vulgate is that Latin first corrected and pub¬ 
lished by the monk St. Jerome, a. d. 384, by order of Pope 
Damasus, and by the Council of Trent pronounced au¬ 
thentic; so that no one may dare or presume, under any 
pretext, to reject it. 

All the French, Italian, and Spanish bibles that were 
published before the sixteenth century, were taken wholly 
from the Latin.— Marsh’s Michaclis , vol. 2. p. 7. 


I conclude this general synopsis of the ancient versions 
of the New Testament, by a striking and spirited censure, 
(as applicable to the great author from whom I quote so 
largely, as to the most bigotted of his fraternity,) which I 
find in a very able work, entitled Palceoromaica , published 
by Murray, 1822, professing to inquire whether the Helle¬ 
nistic style (that of the Greek Testament ) is not Latin 
Greek. “ The opinion that the Epistle to the Romans was 
originally composed in Latin, is not only supported by the 
Syrian scholiast, but has been conjectured by several 



APPENDIX 


419 


cheolog'ans, chiefly of the Roman church ;* which, to the 
shame of Protestantism, has allowed far greater freedom 
of discussion to its members than has ever been enjoyed 
in those churches which profess to make free inquiry the 
boon which they oiler, and the very badge of their dis¬ 
tinction. In fact, it is difficult to say, what has been 
secretly discovered or not discovered in biblical criticism 
and theology, as authors, on these topics, have hitherto 
written in fetters : and many of them, probably, have sup¬ 
pressed much of their real sentiments, from an anxiety for 
their repose.”— Pahcoromaica , p. 18G. Could this learned 
writer have more significantly given us to understand, that 
divines have never yet had courage enough to be honest 
men ? 


EDITIONS OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT. 

1. The Complutensian Polyglot, so called from Com- 
pluturn,the ancient name for Alcala, a Spanish University, 
and polyglot, of many tongues. Published at the expence 
and under the management of the celebrated cardinal, 
statesman, and warrior, Francis Ximenes de Cisneros, the 
22nd of March, 1520, by permission of Pope Leo X. Only 
600 impressions were taken oil’. 

2. A. I). 1516. —Erasmus, at Basle in Switzerland, pub¬ 
lished an edition, from a few manuscripts found in that 
neighbourhood—a second, a third, and, lastly, in a. d. 1527, 
a fourth, in which, to obviate the clamour of bigots, he 
introduced many alterations, to make it agree with the 
edition of Cardinal Ximenes. 

3. A. D. 1550. —Robert Stephens,! a learned printer, 
at Paris, published a splendid edition, in which he availed 
himself of the Complutensian Polyglot. It abounds with 
errors, though long supposed to be a correct and immacu¬ 
late work. 

4. A- D. 1589. — Theodore Bf.za, successor to John Cal¬ 
vin, at Geneva, published a critical edition, in which he 
made use of Robert Stephen’s own copy, with many 


* Were common sense consulted in matters of biblical criticism, what would 
it say to the supposition that an Epistle to the Romans should be written in a lan¬ 
guage of which the Romans were utterly ignorant ? or to the fact, of the many 
words in the Greek Testament which are nothing more than Latin words written 
in Greek characters, and such as no Greek writer of those times would either have 
used or known the use of ? 

t He first introduced the present division of the text of the New Testament mtu 
• r erses.— Michaelis, vol. 2, pt. I, p. 527. 



420 


appendix. 


additional various readings,* from fifteen manuscripts, which 
had been entrusted to the collation of Henry Stephens , the 
son of Robert, a youth of eighteen years of age. 

5. A. D. 1624.—The Elzevir edition, published at Ley¬ 
den, at the office of the Elzevirs, who were the most 
eminent printers of their time. The editor is unknown. 
This edition differs very little from the text of Robert 
Stephens ; a few variations are admitted from the edition 
of Beza, and a very few more upon some unknown 
authority ; but it does not appear that the editor was in 
possession of any manuscripts. The reputation of the 
Elzevirs for correctness of typography, and the beauty of 
this specimen, raised it to the pinnacle—it was unac¬ 
countably taken for granted, that it exhibited a pure and 
perfect text. This, therefore, became the standard of all 
succeeding editions^ and constitutes at this day the received 
text. 


EUROPEAN TRANSLATIONS. 

A. D. 900.—Valdo, Bishop of Frising, caused the gospels 
to be translated into Dutch rhyme. 

1160.—Valdus, Bishop of-, caused them to be turn¬ 

ed into French rhyme. We may guess how closely the 
original would be adhered to in these poems. 

1360.—Charles the Wise is said to have caused them to 
be turned into French prose. 

1377.—John Trevisa translated them into English. 

The art of printing was discovered a. d, 1444 ; the first 
printed book in England was published by Caxton, a. d. 
1474, the 13th of the reign of our Edward IV. Before 
this time our Christian countrymen, generally, must have 
been entirely ignorant of the text of Scripture. 

1517.—William Tyndal made the best English transla¬ 
tion of the New Testament, and was put to death for hav¬ 
ing done so. 

1611.—The seventh of our King James I., that is, 217 
years since, is the date of our present English translation ; 
in the preface to which, the translators admit, that they 
themselves did not know whether there were any transla¬ 
tion, or correction of a translation, in existence, in King 
Henry the Eighth or King Edward’s time. The ground of 

* The number of the various readings is admitted to be at least one hundred and 
thirty thousand ; the total number of words is one hundred and eighty one thou¬ 
sand two hundred and fifty-three. 




APPENDIX. 


421 

objection adduced by the puritans against the Church of 
England Liturgy, to King James I., at Hampden Court, 
was, that it maintained the Bible as there translated, which 
they said was a most corrupt translation. In the justice 
of this complaint, originated our present translation under 
patronage of that u most high and mighty prince, James,” 
which the Roman Catholics, with equal justice complain, 
that it egregiously Protestantizes , and purposely gives a ren¬ 
dering to innumerable phrases, devised to hide and disguise 
their original and essentially monkish and papistical sig- 
nificancy.— Ward's Errata of the Protestant Translation , and 
Johnson's Historical Account of the several English Translations 
of the Bible. 


SPURIOUS PASSAGES. 

Passages of the New Testament , retained and circulated as the 
Word of God , or as of equal authority with the rest , though 
known and admitted on all hands to be forgeries. 

Acts xx.. 28.—1 Timothy iii. 16.—1 John v. 7.—These 
are admitted to be of the utmost importance, bearing 
on the most essential doctrines, yet are wilful and wicked 
interpolations. 

Matt. vi. 15.—The whole of the doxology at the end of 
the Lord’s prayer. 

John v.—The whole story of the Pool of Bethesda. 
Luke xvi. 19.—The whole story of the Rich Man in 
Hell-fire. 

John viii.—The whole story of the Woman taken in 
Adultery. 

Luke xxiii. 39.—The whole story of the Penitent Thief. 
Acts ix. 5, 6.—The whole paragraph of Christ’s Speech 
out of the Clouds. 

The whole of the subscriptions at the end of the Epis¬ 
tles, wherever found. 

The whole of the titles and superscriptions wherever 
found. 

Passages of the New Testament rejected by the German Divines , 
and most eminent Christian critics , scholars , and theologians 
of Europe : or held as at least , infinitely suspicious. 

The whole of the Gospel of St. John, from beginning to 
end.— Bretschneider. 

The whole of the Epistle to the Hebrews : of the Epistle 
of St. James : of the 2nd Epistle of Peter : of the 2nd 
Epistle of John : of the 3d Epistle of John : of the Epistle 
37 



422 


APPENDIX. 


of Jude : of the Revelation—“ Not fit to be alleged as ai 
fording sufficient proof of any doctrine.”— Dr. Lardner. 

The whole of the last nine verses of Matt. i. 

The whole of the second chapter following. 

The whole of the one hundred and twenty-six verses 
immediately following Luke’s preface. 

The who'e of the Story of the Angel and the bloody 
Sweat, (Luke xx. 43.) —Unitarian Editors. 

The whole story of the Conception, of the Slaughter of 
the Innocents, of the Devil and the herd of Swine.— Dr. 
Evanson. 

The whole of the genealogy of Christ, as appearing in 
St. Luke. 

The whole of the story of his baptism, of his transfigu¬ 
ration, of his calming the storm. 

The whole of the gospels of St. Matthew, St. Mark, and 
St. John.— Evanson. 

The whole of the Acts of the Apostles was unknown or 
rejected by many sincere professors of the Christian faith 
in the fourth century.— Chrysostom. 

The whole of the Epistle to the Romans, the Epistle to 
the Ephesians, the Epistle to the Colossians, the 1st Epis¬ 
tle of Peter, the 1st Epistle of John.— Evanson. 

Bishop Marsh makes a droll apology for the blunders o* 
Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which he maintains to be per¬ 
fectly compatible with divine inspiration : “ John, who 
was inspired as well as they, had the advantage of having 
a better memory .” They had all of them need of good mem¬ 
ories, or there is no truth in the proverb. 

It is the unquestionably Christian , and insurpassably 
learned Evanson, who exclaims, “ Gracious God ! have 
mercy upon the presumptuous folly and madness of thy 
erring creatures !”— Dissonance , p. 82. 


FALSE REPRESENTATIONS. 

1. It is a false representation, or what would be called 
in common parlance—a lie, upon the title-page, where it 
is represented, that the New Testament is “ translated 
out of the original Greek,” seeing there never was any 
original Greek. The original of Matthew’s gospel is be¬ 
lieved to have been Hebrew. The Epistle to the Ro¬ 
mans, and indeed, the whole of the New Testament, ex¬ 
isted in a barbarous monkish Latin, from which the old¬ 
est Greek manuscripts in existence are but barbarous 
translations. 



APPENDIX. 


423 


2. The circulating the whole as the word of God, and 
as of equal authority, notwithstanding its containing sev¬ 
eral forged and interpolated passages, admitted so to be, 
by the circulators themselves.* 

3. The representing Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John 
as the authors of the gospels which go under their names ; 
in the teeth of evidence, that those gospels are blundering 
compilations from some previously existing document or 
documents. 

4. The representing these compilers of previously 
existing documents, as contemporaries or witnesses of the 
transactions which their compilations detail. 

5. The multiplying the number of pretended witnesses 
to the facts of the gospel, by representing those as wit¬ 
nesses, who are only said by other persons, to have been 
witnesses. 

6. The fear of making inquiry whether these things are 
so, from the fear of discovering that they are even so. 

7. The taking any means, fair or foul, direct or indirect, 
to prevent the knowledge of them coming to be generally 
and extensively spread. 

8. The giving currency or credence, to all manner of 
scandal, slander, and evil speaking ; and heaping all pos¬ 
sible calumnies on the motives and characters of those who 
labour to undeceive mankind. 

9. The prosecuting, persecuting, and seeking to destroy 
or drive out of life, those who exert themselves to provoke 
inquiry, and to diffuse knowledge—who sacrifice their own 
interests to the public good, and prefer the luxury of 
making the world in which they live the better, to all the 
luxuries the world can give. 

10. The taking no notice, or affecting to take none, of 
the objections to the evidences of the Christian religion, 
which have arisen upon admissions and surrenders which 
have been made by the ablest divines of the present cen¬ 
tury, and on the improved science of criticism, on both 
sides ; and then pretending that there is no novelty in the 
objections of modern infidelity ; or that the objections of 
the present century had been sufficiently refuted by the 
Watsons, Paleys, Lardners, or Leslies, of fifty or a hun 

* Yet these propagandists, propagating in God’s name what they know to be a 

- f would, to be sure, pass themselves off for honest men—aye, as honest as the 

clippers and coiners wiio pay their way with a great deal of really good money, 
ors'v clipping in, here and there, a known dump. If, in our own time, at' our bish¬ 
ops', and clergy, and all religionists, of all sorts, still concur in circulating or coun¬ 
tenancing that as truth, which they know to be false, what chance, think we, had 
truth in the struggb, in olden time ? 


42 i 


APPENDIX. 


dred years ago—as if, after admissions had been made, 
which had never before been admitted ; no room had been 
given for objections to be made, which had never before 
been objected; and, while the press has teemed with a 
thousand better modes of defending Christianity, unbe¬ 
lievers had been asleep all the while, and dreamed of no 
adroiter methods of attacking it: or, as if the Alleys, 
Beards, Belshams, Chalmers, Charmings, Collyers, Elsleys, 
Hartwell Hornes, Pye Smiths, Wilsons, Marshs’, &c., and 
the whole Christian phalanx of the present generation, had 
had no scope for their prowess but on the dead bones of 
Tindal, Chubb, Voltaire, or Paine ; and were the succes¬ 
sors only to an inglorious war, of which the conquest and 
the laurels had been won before they were born. 


CHRONOLOGICAL TABLES. 


AN EXPLICATION OF SOME TERMS AND ABBREVIATIONS WHICH OCCUR 
IN ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

A.U., Anno Urbis , is the year of the foundation of the city of 
Rome,* according to Varro’s account. 

A.U.C.. Anno Urbis Conditce , or Anno ab Urbe Condita , is the 
same sense more fully expressed, i. e. in the year from the building 
of the city. 

A.D., Anno Domini, or the year of the Lord. Since the con¬ 
version of Constantine, a.d. 311, it denotes the vulgar Christian 
sera, according to which Christ is supposed to have been born Dec. 
25, in the 45th of the Julian period, and 754th from the build¬ 
ing of Rome. This calculation, though serving the purposes of 
general reading, is known to be defective. Lardner says, u Our 
Saviour was born in the reign of Herod the Great.” But it is cer¬ 
tain that Herod died before the Passover, a.u. 752, very probably 
in a.u. 750 or 751. 

We learn from Josephus,f that the Procuratorship of Pontius 
Pilate corresponded with the last ten years of the Empeor Tiberi¬ 
as : that is, from a.d. 27 to a.d. 35. As to the particular time of 
the death of Christ, a very early 'tradition fixed it to the 25th of 
March, a.d. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini.J This 
date is adopted by Pagi, Cardinal Norris, and Le Clerc. The vul¬ 
gar aera places it, without any known reason, four years later. 

The Julian Period is an epoch, so called from Julius Caesar. 

* Rorriulua commenced the building of Rome about 751 years before the Christ¬ 
ian rera. 

t Antiquitat. IS, 3. tTertullian, adv. Judaeos,c. 8. 



APPENDIX. 


425 


The first year of this epoch, when Caesar’s reformation of the 
Roman year took place, commences the first of January, a. u. 709 
A. M., Anno Mundi , i. e. the year of the world, ridiculously 
fixed at 4004 before the birth of Christ. Julius Africanus, a 
Christian chronologist, who wrote a. d. 220, insists that the 
world was made on the first of September, and was exactly 
5508 years, three months, and twenty-five days old at the birth 
of Christ. The learned Dr. Lightfoot thinks he can, with great 
probability, settle the precise time when the Christian covenant 
began. He says, that “ Adam was created on Friday morning, 
at nine o’clock ; that he ate the forbidden fruit about one , (that 
being the time of eatihg) ; and that Christ was promised about 
three o'clock in the afternoon .” So nicely accurate is our religious 
chronology. 

But never be it forgotten, that the application of chronology 
to matters of faith, is entirely of modern invention. The Apostles 
themselves, and the most primitive fathers, who understood every 
thing allegorically, never dreamed of giving us any more particular 
indications of date to the sacred story than the common preface 
to a fable, u And it came to pass in those days." There are no 
references to contemporary circumstances in the New Testament, 
but such as are outrageously at variance with historical fact. 
Those whom we should be taught to speak of as living in the first 
time of Christianity, speak of themselves as existing in the last 
time, and as knowing it was the last time.* Those who are 
believed to have flourished when Christianity was in its most 
primitive purity, complain of the prevalence of its universal corrup¬ 
tion. Justin Martyr, the first of the Christian apologists, is out in 
his chronology to the difference of 300 years, and makes Ptolemy, 
king of Egypt, and Herod, king of Jerusalem, contemporaries.! 

THE REIGNS AND ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF THE ROMAN 
EMPERORS, DURING THE FOUR FIRST CENTURIES OF THE 
CHRISTIAN jERA. 

First Century. a. d. 

Augustus, having reigned 44 years from the defeat of 
Mark Antony, and 57 from the death of Julius Caesar, 
died, - August 19, 14 

Tiberius, began his reign, - August 19, 14 

Caligula, began his reign, - March 16, 37 

Claudius, ------ January 24, 41 

Nf.ro ------- October 13, 54 

Galba, reigned from - - June 9, 68, to January 15, 69 

Otho, _ - - - January 15, 69, to April 16, — 

* John ii. 18 . 

f On tie nroXifiaiog o aiyvnTitav (iuOtXtvg ro} ro)V *8oauu» Tor* 

pitOiXtvovrt HQojdt ].— Apol. 1, p. 49. 


426 


APPENDIX. 


A. D 


Vitellius, reigned from - June 2, 69, to December 21, % — 
Vespasian, began his reign, - July 1> 69 

Titus, -.June 24, 79 

Domitian ------ September 13, 81 

JVerva ------ September 18, 96 

Trajan, .January 27, 98 

Second Century. 

Adrian began his reign, - - - - August 10, 117 

Antoninus Pius, ------ July 10, 138 

M. Antoninus Verus Aurelius, the Philosopher, March 7, 161 
Commodus, - * - - - - - March 17, 180 

Helvius Pertinax, ----- December 31, 192 

Didius Julianus, March 28, 193 

Septimius Severus, ------ April 13, 193 


Third Century. 

Septimius Severus reigned to, - - - - - - 211 

Antoninus Caracalla, ------- 220 

Macrinus, - -------221 

Antoninus Heliogabalus, - - - 224 

Alexander, - -- -- -- -- 237 

Maximinius, - -- -- -- - 240 

Gordianus, - -- -- -- - 246 

Philip,.- - - 254 

Decius, - -- -- -- -- 255 

Gallus, JEmilianus, three months, - - 256 

Yalerianus, and his son ) _ _ _ _ _ -271 

Galienus, ) 

Claudius, - -- -- -- -- 273 

Quintilius, only seventeen days in, - - 273 

Aurelianus, - -- -- --276 

Tacitus, only six months, - > 

Florinus reigned 80 days, - - - - - - $ ~ 

Probus, .285 

Carus, - -- -- -- - 287 

Diocletian, - -- -- -- - 307 

Fourth Century. 

Diocletian reigned with > 

Maximianus, \ . 307 

Constantius with ) ^ 

Maximinus, Constantius surviving, ] 

Constantinus Magnus, ------- 336 

Constantius, jun., Constantius, and Constans, - - 365 

Julian, began Dec. 11,365, died, ----- 367 

Jovian, only seven months, 

Valentinianus, - -- -- -- - 378 

Valentinianus, jun., Gratianus, and Theodosius Magnus, - 593 







APPENDIX. 


427 


THE NAMES AND ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS 

All who lived and wrote at any time within the first century, so 
as to fall within a supposition of the possibility of their having seen 
or conversed with any one or more of the Apostles themselves, are 
on that account called 

The Apostolic Fathers 

These are five only : a d. 

St. Barnabas -------- 

St. Clement, Bishop of Rome, called therefore Clemens Ro~ 

manus ------- 96 

St. Hermas, brother to Pius, Bishop of Rome, - - 100 

St. Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch, - 
St. Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, - * - 

Fathers of the Second Century. 

Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, - 101 

Quadratus, a prophet and apologist, - - - - 119 

Aristides, an Athenian philosopher and apologist, - - 121 

iEgesippus, an ecclesiastical historian, - 130 

Justin Martyr, - - - - - - -140 

Melito, Bishop of Sardis, - - - - - - 141 

Apollinaris, apologist, - - - - - - -163 

Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, ----- 167 

Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, - - - - - 181 

Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons, 182 

Pantaenus, Master of the Alexandrine school, - - 193 

Clemens Alexandrinus. - - - - - - 194 

Father's of the Third Century. 

Tertullian, a priest of Carthage, - 
Minutius Felix, ------- 

Origen, - -- -- -- - 

St. Gregory, the wonder worker, - 

Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, ----- 

Novatian, aspirant to the see of Rome, - - - 

Lucian, Presbyter of Antioch. - - - 

Fathers of the Fourth Century. 

Peter, tenth Bishop of Alexandria, - 
Arnobius - -- -- -- - 

Lactantius 

Alius, and his follower, ------ 

Euseulus, Bishop of Caesarea, - 

Constantine, Emperor, - 
Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria, 

Damasus, Pope of Rome, - - - “ 

Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, 

Gregory Nazianzen, - - - 

Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia, 

Ambrose, Archbishop of Milan, ---- 

Jerome, Presbyter and Monk, - - 

Augustin, Bishop of Hippo Regius, in Africa, - 


202 

210 

230 

243 

248 

251 

290 

300 

306 

316 

316 

316 

316 

326 

370 

370 

370 

371 
374 
392 
395 





428 


APPENDIX 


Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople, - 398 

Innocent I., Pope of Rome, - - 400 


THE NAMES AND ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN 

HERETICS 

The Jlpostolic Heretics. 

Hymenaeus. 

Alexander. 

Philetus. 

Hermogenes. 

Demas. 

Diotrephes. 

Dositheus, a Samaritan, who set himself up as the Messiah. 

Simon Magus, styling himself the great power of God. 

Menander, a pupil of Simon Magus. 

Nicolas, founder of the sect of JVicolaitans. mentioned 2 Rev. 
6. 14. 15. 

Cerinthus, against whom St. John wrote his gospel. 

Basilides, who taught that it was Simon the Cyrenian, and not 
Jesus, who was crucified ; while Christ stood by and laughed at 
the mistake of the Jews ; his notion was adopted by Mahomet, and 
is seriously maintained in the Koran. 

Carpocrates, worshipped images of Jesus, Paul, Pythagoras, 
Plato, and Aristotle, &.C., as having equal claims on human super¬ 
stition. 


HERETICS OF THE SECOND CENTURY. 

Nazarenes, a continuation of the Therapeuts, 

Ebiomtes, a poor sect of Unitarians, who fell into the wild con¬ 
ceit that. Jesus Christ was a mere mortal man, and had a corporeal 
existence. 

A.D. 114. Elkai, founder of the sect of the Elcesaitcs, who 
maintained, that Jesus Christ was a certain power, whose height 
was 24 schaenia, i. e. 66 miles, his breadth 24 miles, and his 
thickness proportionably wonderful. 

They who receive the book called the Acts, or Journies of the 
Apostles, Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas, and Paul,—says the 
learned and pious Jeremiah Jones, must believe that Christ was 
not really, but only appeared as a man ; and was seen by his 
disciples in various forms, sometimes as a young man, sometimes 
as an old one, sometimes * as a child, sometimes great, sometimes 
small, sometimes so tall, that his head would reach the clouds, 
that he was not crucified himself, but another in his stead, 
while he stood by and laughed at the mistake of those who 
imagined that they crucified him. Jones on the Canon , vol. 1 

p. 12. 

Saturninus of Antioch. 

Cerdo of Syria. 





APPENDIX. 


429 


Marcion ofPonlus. 

Valentine of Egypt. 

Bardesanes of Edessa. 

Tatian of Assyria. 

Theodotus. 

Artemon. 

Hermogenes. 

Montan us. 

It would be idle to attempt to assign to each liercsiarch the 
particular tenets upon which his sect was founded. To the variety 
of combinations which madness may form, madness only would 
seek for definitions, or care for them. 

Were there ever any two congregations of Christians in all the 
world, who exactly agree in telling the Christian story in every 
respect in the same way ? They who were nearest to the foun¬ 
tain head, were farthest from consistency. Upwards of ninety dif¬ 
ferent heresies are admitted to have existed within the three first 
centuries. 


JEWISH AUTHORS. 

A.D. 40. Philo Judaeus, a native of Alexandria, of a priest’s 
family, and brother to the aiabarch, or ^hief Jewish magistrate 
in that city. See the large use of his testimony by Eusebius , given in 
this Diegesis. 

A.D. 67. T. Flavius Josephus, the well known historian, or 
rather mythographist of the Jewish wars. 

The version or first translation of the Jewish scriptures into 
Greek, made by 70 or 72 translators called in proof, the Scptua- 
gint is properly the Alexandrian version, as having been made 
at Alexandria in Egypt, about 250 years b. c. Not only the 
Old Testament, but the New, was entirely concocted and got 
up by these Egyptian monks, who from their far famed university 
of Alexandria, dealt out at their pleasure, the credenda that have 
since regulated the faith, and subjugated the reason of man¬ 
kind. In a word, we owe every iota of the Christian religion 
to the Egyptian monks, and the facilities afforded for overbear¬ 
ing the resistance of reason and common sense, by the collecting 
and bringing together of all the powers of imposture into the first 
of these mischievous and wicked cabals, those chartered pha¬ 
lanxes of confederated knaves, which have since been called 
universities. 

A.D. 123. Aquila of Pontus, a Gentile convert to the Christian 
faith, lapsed into Judaism, and translated the Old Testament. 

A.D. 175. Theodotion, also a Gentile convert, lapsed into 
Judaism, and made a very literal version of the Hebrew scriptures 

A.D. 201. Symmachus, a Samaritan, first adhered to the Jews, 
then turned Christian, and afterwards turned Jew again: made 



430 


APPENDIX. 


a new, but rather paraphrastical, translation of the Old Tes¬ 
tament. 


THE NAME AND ORDER OF SUCCESSION OF WRITERS WHO HAVE 
DIRECTLY OPPOSED THE CHRISTIAN FAITH. 

The principal are :—1, Celsus ; 2, Hierocles ; 3, Porphyry ; and 
4, Julian. k 

Of these, the writings only of the Emperor Julian, who comes 
far too late in time to be of consideration—have come down to us. 

We have nothing from the pen of Celsus, but what Origen, who 
attempted to refute him a hundred years after, has chosen to ailili- 
ate upon him. 

We gather that Hierocles opposed the character of the philoso¬ 
pher Apollonius of Tyana, as a real character and a better exam¬ 
ple of moral perfection, than the imagined hero of the gospel. 

Porphyry acquired the surname of the virtuous; and brought such 
formidable objections to the Christian story, that all his real writings 
were by the order of the Christian Emperor Theodosius, committed 
to the flames ; and such writings only as Christians themselves had 
forged, permitted to come down to posterity under his name. 


ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORIANS. 

A.D. 315. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea. 

A.D. 423. Theodoret of Antioch, Bishop of Cyrus. 

A.D. 439. Socrates of Constantinople, a lawyer or pleader, 
hence sometimes called Scholasticus. He wrote an ecclesiastical 
history from the accession of Constantine, a. d. 309, to a. d. 439, 
with uncommon judgment and diligence. 

A.D. 440. Sozomen (Hermias) of Bethelia, near Gaza, in Pal¬ 
estine, composed a history of the same period, as the two prece¬ 
ding writers ; his style is superior to that of Socrates ; but his 
judgment must be inferior. 

A.D. 425. Philostorgius of Cappadocia, wrote a history of about 
a hundred years from a. d. 325. 

A.D. 595. Evagrius Scholasticus, Prefect of Antioch. His 
Ecclesiastical History extends from a. d. 431, to a. d. 594. u It is 
much loaded” says Elsley “ with credulous accounts of miracles.” 

A. D. 401. Sulpitius Severus, a Latin Historian, of Aquitane, 
m France, and a priest, has left us a little history of the world,— 
brought down to a. d. 400. 

A.D. 1333. Niccphorus Cnlhstus, a monk of Constantinople. 
His history is weak and lull of idle fables. 

THE ECCLESIASTICAL COUNCILS. 

A.D. 1. The first held at Jerusalem, was a meeting of king 




APPENDIX. 431 

Herod and all the chief priests and scribes of the people, with the 
wise men of the east, to inquire where Christ should be born. 

A.D 12. “ A council of priests, whereat Jesus Christ was 
admitted into the holy order of priesthood,—a jury of midvvives 
having been impanneled, and upon due scrutiny hud, on the body 
of his mother, having given in their unanimous verdict, that her 
virginity remained intact.” —So far the learned Suidas, as he learn¬ 
ed of a Jew. 

A.D. 32. Council of chief priests to make their bargain with 
Judas Iscariot for the arrest of Jesus Christ. 

A.D. 32. A Council of chief priests to defeat the testimony of 
the soldiers who kept the sepulchre. 

A.D. 32. Council of the Apostles to elect Matthias into the 
apostleship in the room of the traitor Judas. 

GENERAL COUNCILS. 

A.D. 47. Council of the Apostles concerning circumcision.— 
Acts of the Apostles . 

A.l). 66. Council of the Apostles to elect Simeon Cleophas 
2nd Bishop of Jerusalem, to succeed James. 

A.D. 70. Council in which the apostolic canons are pretended 
to have been agreed on. 

A.D. 99. Council of Ephesus for the reformation of the 
churches and consecration of Bishops, at which John the Evan¬ 
gelist was present ; and being a. priest, as we learn from Polycrates, 
who had the advantage of him in being a bishop, wore a * scapula- 
ry or surplice. 

A.D. 163. The Council of Ancyra in Galatia, to suppress the 
errors of IVIontanus. 

A.D. 179. Councils in France and Asia, against the heresy of 
Montanus. 

A.D. 193. Council at Rome touching the celebration of Easter. 
Victor Bishop of Rome, excommunicated all the eastern churches, 
for their difference on this subject. 

A.D. 246. Fabianus, Pope of Rome, miraculously elected by 
the Holy Ghost perching upon his head in the shape of a dove ; 
in synod denounced the schism of Novatus. 

A.D. 254! Council of Carthage under its President, Cyprian, 
fell into the heresy of re-baptizing heretics. 

A.D. 271. A first and second council of Antioch, for the con¬ 
demnation of, and degradation of its Bishop, Paul of Samosata. 

A.D. 295. Grand Council of 300 bishops and 30 priests, at 
Sinuessa, who*-* Marcellinus, Bishop of Rome, was condemned for 
denying Christ, and sacrificing to idols 

* Kat ivyowrjc 0 tj rt rr arrftoc, r« xvutH aranto^rv, oc tytvtj&ij itQevg to ntraXov 
nt.tpoQvxvog—Anu John, -vho leaned on the Lord’s bosom, who having become a 
priest wore a petalou.- Euseb. lib. 3. c. 25.—Popish trumpery so soon in 
uisduon ! 


432 


APPENDIX. 


A.D. 307. Council of Ancyra, where such as sacrificed to idols, 
were allowed to be received under certain conditions, and deacons 
who could not contain, were suffered to marry. 

A.D. 327. Grand Council of Nice in Bythinia, under the pres¬ 
idency of Constantine the Great, gave us the God of God creed 
used in the communion service. Pappus, in his Synodicon to tho 
council of Nice, asserts, that having promiscuously put all the 
books under the communion table in a church, they besought the 
Lord, that the inspired records might get upon the table, while 
the spurious ones remained underneath, which accordingly hap¬ 
pened.* 

A.D. 368. Council of Laodicea. This council first, and not 
that of Nice, is supposed to have given a catalogue of the books 
contained in the New Testament : not including the Revelation 

A.D. 397. The third council of Carthage ; present, Aurelius, 
Bishop of Carthage ; Augustin, Bishop of Hippo, and 42 other 
bishops. Of this council, the 47th Canon ordains, u that nothing 
beside the canonical scriptures be read in the church under the 
name of divine scriptures.” All those contained and arranged 
as in our present Old and New Testaments, are in this canon 
enumerated as being canonical. 

A.D. 401. The council of Chalcedon. Here first the New Tes¬ 
tament was set in the midst of the assembly, as the great appeal. 
Yet St. Chrysostom, who died a.d. 407, assures us, that in his time, 
the Acts of the Apostles was a book by many Christians, entirely 
unknown. 

“ The canon of the New Testament,” says Dr. Lardner, “ had 
not been settled by any authority that was decisive and universally 
acknowledged, but Christian people were at liberty to judge for 
themselves, concerning the genuineness of writings proposed to 
them as apostolical ; and to determine according to evidence.” 
Even so late as in the time of the historian Cassiodorus,f whom 
Dr. Lardner places at a.d. 556. 

There are reckoned in all 17 general councils, but the rest of 
them are too late in time, or too irrelevant to any bearing on the 
historical evidences of Christianity, to come within the scope of 
this Diegesis —the council of Trent, a.d. 1549, is the last of them. 

Augustus the monk first preached Christianity in England 
a.d. 597. 

The inhabitants of England being Piets , or painted savages, 
first embraced Christianity, a.d. 698. Chronol. Table of Evans's 
Sketches. 

* Ev yaQ otxw rov Osov xarw naqa rt} Stia TQunett] avrag naQa^f^isvt], nnooev- 
taxo o)$ evQt&Tjrai xag Stonrivaxovg enavw, T ov Kvqiov e^aixtjoafisvij, xai Tug 
xiSSrjl.ovg, o xai yeyovev, vTioxvexutfer. 

t Senator and Compiler of the Tripartite History, i. e. the Ecclesiastical Hisio- 
ries of Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret united.—See this argument handled in 
my Syntagma p. 68. Published from this prison in refutation of the infinite vitu¬ 
perations of the Christian Instruction Society. 


APPENDIX 


433 


ECCLESIASTICAL REVENUES. 


World. 


Nations. 

Denomina¬ 

tions. 

Number of 
Hearers. 

Payment to j 
Clergy. 

England, and 

C Prots 

6,000,000 

7,596,000 'i 


Wales. 

( Caths. &c. 

6,000,000 

513,000 



C Prots 

400,000 

1,300,000 


Ireland. 

Caths 

5,500,000 

) 261 000 

> 


( other Sects 

1,100,000 




( Presbyts 

1,754,824 

206,000 


Scotland. 

£ Caths 

50,000 

44,000 



( Caths 

29,000,000 

1,030,000 < 

) 

France. 

( Prots 

1,000,100 

20,000 

\ 

Spain. 

Caths 

11,000,000 

1,100,000 


Portugal. 

Caths 

3,000,000 

300,000 



C Caths 

4,000,000 

320,000 ) 

Hungary. 

( Prots 

1,700,000 

89,000 C 

Italy. 

Caths 

19,391,000 

776,000 



f Caths 

15,918,000 

800,000 


Austria. 

< Prots 

1,000,000 

50,000 



C Greeks 

2,000,000 

37,000 



( Caths 

600,000 

30,000 } 

Switzerland. 

\ Prots 

1,120,000 

57,000 \ 


C Caths 

4,000,000 

200,000 


Prussia. 

( Prots 

6,536,000 

327,000 



C Caths 

4,763,000 

285,000 ) 

German States* 

| Prots 

8,000,000 

480,000 ( 


C Caths 

700,000 

. 56,000 

) 

Holland. 

£ Prots 

1,300,000 

104,000 

5 

Netherlands. 

Caths 

3,000,000 

105,000 


Denmark. 

Prots 

1,700,000 

119,000 


Sweden. 

Prots 

3,400,000 

23S,000 



C Caths 

5,500,000 

275,000 

y 

Russia. 

< Prots 

2,500,000 

125,000 

\ 


( (i reeks 

34,000,000 

600,000 



( Caths 

1,000,000 

30,000 

> 

Turkey. 

( Greeks 

5,000,000 

123,000 



C Prots 

9,100,000 

546,000 


North America. 

^ Caths 

500,0000 

30,000 


South America. 

Caths 

15,000,000 

450,000 


Dispersed ) 

C Caths 

1,500,000 

75,000 


Christians ) 

i Prots 

1,500,000 

75,000 

* 


Total 
Pav msm. 


9,920,009 


1,050,000 

1,100,000 

300,000 

409,000 

776,000 

887,000 

87,000 

527,000 

765,000 

160,000 

105,000 

119,000 

238,000 

1,000,000 

153,000 

576,000 

450,000 

150,000 


Great Britain for 
Leaving, for 


119,532,824 

20,804,824 


198,72«,000 


pays 

to pay only 


18,772,000 

9,920,000 

8,852,000 


RECAPITULATION OF THE PRECEDING 
Protestants, &c. 48,110,824 pay their Clergy. 

Catholics, 130,422,000 - 

Greek Church, 41,000,000 . 


Total Christians 219,532,824 pay their Clergy, 
Grt. Britain, for 20,804,824 people pays 

Leaving, for 198,728,000 people to pay only 

38 


TABLE. 

£11,462,500 

6,549,500 

760,000 

£18,772,000 

9,920,000 

£8,852,000 






























434 


appendix. 


EXTENT OP CHRISTIANITY. 

If we divide the known countries of the earth, into thirty equal 
parts, five of them are Christian, six Mahometan, and nineteen 
Pagan.— Bayle’s Dictionary. 

Dr. Evans supposing the inhabitants of the world to be eight 
hundred millions ; gives us the annexed scale of probable pro¬ 
portions. 

Jews - -- -- -- - 2,500,000 

Pagans ------- 482,000,000 

Christians ------- 175,000,000 

Mahommedans ------ 140,000,000 

Subdivision of Christians. 

Greek and Eastern Churches - 30,000,000 

Roman Catholics 80,000,000 

Protestants ------- 65,000,000 


Total number of Christians - - - 175,000,000 

In this, which is wholly Christian arithmetic, no account is 
made of the probable proportion of either professed or real unbe¬ 
lievers, whose number, be it greater or less, is on all hands 
admitted to be an increasing number, and a number to be 
deducted, not from the amount of Jews, Pagans, or Mohamme¬ 
dans ; but exclusively from the amount of Christians; and in the 
amount of Christians, chiefly from the most intelligent, reflecting, 
and literary characters, that is unquestionably from the very nerves 
and core of their strength. 

Let their own statement be credible—e. g. Dr. Priestley observes 
in one of his last sermons, that when he visited France in 1774, 
all her philosophers and men of letters were absolutely infidels.* 
Dr. Evans who died Jan. 24, 1827, had announced his plan of 
a work, which he lived not to finish, whose professed object, in his 
own terms, was to shield the minds of the rising generation, from 
the growing evil of the age, an overweening and clamorous in¬ 
fidelity.! 

The whole united Scottish Presbytery, in a dolorous Jeremidd, 
publicly announce, that all the most intelligent and accomplished 
men among them, have imbibed the principles of infidelity 
Their own words are, “ O God , pity us , for our case is vei*y 
pitiful , and there is nobody else to pity us, but only thou , 
O God ! And not now is it according to the word of the Lord 
in the parable, that one sheep should be astray, and ninety 
and nine safely gathered into the fold, but that the ninety and nine 
should be straying and only one abiding in the fold.”J Yet 

* tiuoted thus in Evans’s Sketches, 15th ed. p. 5. 
f Evans’s Sketches, 15th ed. pref. xv. 
f Pastoral Letter from the Scottish Presbytery 1827, p. 89 




APPENDIX. 


435 


those zealous advocates of the Christian cause affect to treat fheir 
adversaries, who are thus gaining the march upon them, it seems > 
at the rate of a hundred to one, as objects of unmingled contempt. 
It is not in the power of language to exceed the tone of bitter re¬ 
viling and caustic scorn with which the followers of the ima¬ 
gined meek and holy Jesus speak of all who call their pretensions 
in question. The odium theologicum , or theological hatred, has 
become a proverb, indicating that no hatred is so intense and im¬ 
placable, as that of the professors of a religion of long-suffering 
and forgiveness. 


AUTHORITIES ADDUCED IN THE DIEGESIS. 


Dr. Whitby’s Last Thoughts, 3. 

Elsley’s Annotations on the Gospels, 5, 
238, 247, 256. 

Tacitus, 7, 394. 

Virgil, 9, 142, 155, 216, 220, 328, 
358. 

Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, 10, 

13, 14, 16, 18, 34, 36, 44. 

Jones on the Canon of the New Test. 

11 . 

Orosius, 13, 398. 

Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Ro¬ 
man Empire, 14, 15, 31, 82, 84, 
144, 195, 282, 283, 328. 

Milton’s Paradise Lost, 15, 16, 181, 
188, 337. 

Pope's Homer’s Iliad, 15. 

Matrimonial Service, 16. 

Le Clerc, Latin Note , 19, 120. 

Dr. Lardner, 19, 27, 41, 44, 93, 108, 
113, 114, 117, 138, 144, 145, 146. 

Unitarian Version of the New Testa¬ 
ment, 19, 116, 216, 378. 

Archbishop Newcomb, 19. 

Hutchinson, 23. 

Shaw’s Travels, 23. 

Shakspeare, 24, 296. 

Parkhurst’s Hebrew Lexicon, 24, 155, 
158, 160, 161, 162, 183, 189. 

A Friend, 25. 

Josephus, Greek , 27, 59, 96. 

Eusebius, Greek , 28, 64,69,70, 71, 
72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 85. 

Valerius Maxirnus, 29. 

Author’s Syntagma, 31, 32, 34, 89, 
129, 271, 352, 368. 

Pseudo Plutarch, 32. 

More’s Songs, 23. 

Juvenal, 23, 232, 466. 

Montfaucon, 60. 

Holvot, 60. 

Lange, 60. 

Henman, 60 


Faustus, 66, 65, 114,252, 371. 
Basnage, 78. 

Manifesto of the Christian Evidence 
Society, 80, 118. 

Evanson’s Dissonance of the Four 
Gospels, 80, 102, 131, 133. 
Bretschneider’s Probabilia, 81, 132, 
136. 

Stein’s Authentia Vindicata, 81, 117. 
Bishop Sage’s Principles of the Cypri- 
anic age, 85, 344. 

Menander, 90, 

St. Gregory, 101. 

St. Athanasius, 101. 

Paley’s Horae Paulinae, 109,375. 
Reeve’s Preliminary to Vincentius, 117 
Cave’s Historia Literaria, 118 
Lessing, 122. 

Niemener, 122. 

Stalfeld of Gottingen, 124. 

Dr. Eichhorn, 124. 

Bishop Marsh, 128, 129. 

Philo apud Eusebium, 69, 70,71,72 
73, 74. 

Julius Firmicius, 144, 162, 163, 164, 
165, 303. 

Philo apud Eusebium , 142. 

Libanius, 145. 

Symmachus, 145. 

Origines Christianae in Author’s Letters, 
145. 

St. Ambrose, 146. 

Addison, 148, 285. 

Pope, 148, 215. 

Seneca’s Medea, 149. 

Eusebius, 150, 151, 164. 

Ovid, 150, 196, 232, 233, 293. 
Marinus, 151. 

Dr. Lardner, 152, 206, 291, 294, 297, 
298, 305, 306, 312, 317. 

Justin Martyr, 153, 232, 257, 258, 
314, 315, 316, 317. 

Spence’s Polymetis, 155. 



APPENDIX. 


436 

Orphic Hymns, 155, 191, 197. 
Fvansion, 157. 

.lodge Blackstonc, 157. 

Bishop Kidder, 15S. 

Oxford Encyclopaedia, 159. 

Or. Kennecott’s Codices, 160. 
SpeaMiian, l63. 

Dr. Gedwyn, 163. 

Bryant’s Ancient Hist. 167. 

Archbishop Magee, 167, 361. 

Harris's Hermes, 31. 

Varro, 33. 

Vosoius, 33, 180. 

Tertullian, 34, 257, 325, 326, 327, 
370, 3.95, 396. 

Evans’s Sketches, 34. 

Mr. Beard, of Manchester, 35, 171, 
367. 

Archdeacon Paley, 35, 109, 275, 361, 
Dr. Chrysostom, 40, 268. 

Dr. Mill, 48. 

Beausobro, 40, 58,118, 125,126, 295, 
303. 

Dr. Samuel Clarke, 41, 377. 

Arnobius, 42, 222, 384, 385. 

St. Augustin, 42, 253, 255, 344. 
Lactantius, 42, 224, 231, 257, 325. 
Mons. Daillee, 42, 45. 

Blount’s Philostratus, 43. 

Epiphanias, 43, 60, 121, 185. 

Bishop Burnet, 43. 

Cicero, 43, 140, 141, 180, 182,211, 
233, 234. 

Cassaubon, 44. 

Dr. H. More, 44. 

Archbishop Wake, 45, 55, 291. 

Dr. Sender, 47, 120, 131. 

Bell’s Pantheon, 48, 142, 143, 144, 
150, 165, 183, 184. 

Desmaiseaux’s Life of St. Evremond, 
33. 

Times Newspaper, 35. 

Mosheim, 47, 48, 52, 53, 61, 65, 98, 
99, 103, 116, 157, 174. 

Fabricius, 43,174, 263,264, 289, 300, 
305, 306, 379, 381, 383, 405. 

Dr. Tindal, 42. 

Works of Paulinus, 49. 

Dr. Middleton’s Letter from Rome, 
49, 50, 57, 236, 271, 275. 

Dr. Middleton’s Free Inquiry, 153, 
154, 230, 235, 340. 

Bishop Stillingfleet, 50. 

Mons. Turretin, 

Author’s Letter from Oakham, 50, 
225. 

Bishop Fell, 54, 288. 

Mons. Dupin, 55, 338. 

Origen, 57, 92, 101, 121, 195, 389. 
Polybuis, 57. 


Grotius, 58. 

Bishop Marsh, 59, 60. 

Dr. Clagett, 57. 

Michadis, 59, 60, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 
116, 117, 256. 

Serarins, 59. 

Drusius, 60. 

Scaliger, 59, 116. 

Sir William Jones in Asiatic Researches, 
168, 169, 170. 

Dr. Bentley, 171. 

Dr. John Pye Smith, of Homerton. 

171, 352. 

Valency, 174. 

Higgins’s Celtic Druids, 176,179, 209, 
224, 243,404. 

Colonel Fitzclarence’s Travels, 178 
Maurice’s Indian Antiquities, 179 
Quarle’s Emblems, 181. 

Dupuis, 184. 

Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, 184. 
Reeves’s Apologies of the Fathers, 184. 
Gonzales, 185. 

Life of St. Patrick, 185. 

Aurelius, 185. 

Volney, 186. 

Hesychius, 187. 

Anacreon, 187. 

Porney’s Pantheon Mythircum, 189, 
236. 

Homer, 191. 

/Eschylus, 192. 

Potter’s Translation of, 193. 

Bishop Watson, 195. 

Kortholt’s Paganus Obtrectator, 197, 
202, 203, 247, 249. 

Minucius Felix, 198, 254. 

Meagher, 199. 

Reeves’s Apologies, 199. 

Madame Dacier, 200. 

Dr. Edward Daniel Clarke’s Travels, 

202 . 

Skelton’s Appeal, 202. 

Socrates Scholasticus, 203, 205, 250, 
251, 252, 343, 345. 

Sozomenes, 205, 353. 

Prudentius, 207. 

Potter’s Antiquities, 207. 

Dicaearchus, 222. 

Menagius, 222. 

Theodorct, 224, 255, 257, 258. 

Soamc Jenyns, 224. 

Liturgy, 181,234. 

Nicene Creed, 181. 

Apostles’ Creed, 184 
Lucan, 217. 

Archbishop Tillotson, 224, 225, 226, 
227, 228. 

Gruter’s Inscriptions, 237. 

Boldonius’s Epigraphs, 237. 


APPENDIX. 437 


Aringhus, 2S7. 

Onomacritus, 239. 

Mosheim ( continued ) 212, 243, 250, 
367. 

Bell’s Pantheon (continued) 213. 
Parkhurst ( continued) 216, 217. 

Sir Win. Jones ( continued) 217, 243. 
Eusebius ( continued ) 239, 257, 267, 
285, 296, 307, 308, 309. 

Parkhurst ( continued) 240. 

Dr. Lardner ( continued ) 246, 251, 
252, 271, 262, 285, 291, 304. 
Johnson’s Rambler, 241 
Clerical Review, 241. 

Watts’s Hymns, 242. 

Mr. Adams, of Edmonton, 243. 

Mens. Baillie, 243 
Confucius, 244. 

Cotelerius, 253, 368. 

St. Jerom 253, 324, 330. 

Ignatius, 253. 

Paganus Obtrectator ( continued) 257, 
396. 

Julian apud Cyrill, 259. 

Dorotheus, 262, 263, -264, 265, 266, 
267, 291. 

Abdias’s Apostolic History, 264, 265, 
266, 270. 

St. Cyrill, 186. 

Sir James Scarlett, 275. 

St. Barnabas, 290. 

St. Clement, 291. 

Stalloicius, 300. 

Flavius Dexter, 300. 

Montfaucon, 304. 

Gibbon ( continued ) 309, 377, 386, 
392. 

Eusebius ( continued) 309, 311, 312, 
313, 317, 322, 323. 

J. H. Esq. unpublished, 309. 

Belsham’s Evidences, 310. 

Dionysius Halicarnasus, 316. 

Dr. Lardner ( continued ) 319, 321, 
323, 324, 331, 332, 339, 342. 
Eusebius ( continued) 330, 347, 349, 
351, 363, 378, 381, 386. 

Suidas, 332, 333. 

Bellamy’s Origen, 49, 334, 335, 336, 
337. 

Dupin’s Bibl. Origines, 338. 

Autllor’s Letters from Oakham, 345, 

350. 

Evagrius, 346. 

Socrates Scholasticus ( continued) 346, 

351, 352. 


Dr. Lardner ( continued) 348, 349, 
350, 362, 364. 

Bibl. Univer 350. 

Zosimus, 352, 353. 

Baronius, 354. 

Pagi, 354. 

Saltonstall, 357. 

Sibylline Verses, 357, 358. 

Evanson ( continued) 360, 378. 
Catholic Miracles, 365. 

Monsieur Le Clerc, 350. 

Dr. Lardner ( continued) 364, 367 
368, 371, 374, 385, 388, 390. 
Toland’s Nazareneus, 373. 

Maracci’s Koran, 374. 

Tombstone in Deptford Churchyard, 
375. 

European Magazine, 377. 

Macrobius, 377. 

Blount’s Philostratus, 3S1. 

Josephus, 385, 3.8. 

Author’s Orations before the Areopa¬ 
gus, 287. 

Bryant’s Vindici® Flavian®, 388. 

Dr. Kippis, 388. 

Abbe Bullet, 389. 

Leslie’s short and easy Method with 
Deists, 390. 

John de Ferraras, 391. 

Johannes de Spire, 393. 

Procopius, 392. 

Baronius, 392. 

Suetonius, 397, 398. 

Justin’s Apology, Greek , 399. 
dementis Strommata, Greek , 399. 

St, Jerom Latin, 399. 

Dr. Lardner ( continued ) 398, 406 
Theophilus of Antioch, 399. 

Pliny, 400. 

Dr. Sender, of Leipsic, 400. 
Haversaas, 404. 

Gierig, 404. 

Corrode, 404. 

Jeremy Xavier, 405. 

Epictetus’ Enchiridion, 406. 

Plutarch, 406. 

Emperor Adrian, 407. 

Emperor Antoninus, 408. 

Martial, 408. 

Lucius Apuleius, 409. 

Lucian, 410. 

Dio Prusaeus. 412. 

Arrian, 412 


38 * 


APPENDIX 


TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE BROUGHT INTO ILLUSTRATION IN THE 
COURSE OF THIS DIEGES1S. 



Page 



Page 

Exodus ii. 10. 

191 

Matthew xxvii. 28. 

- 

168 

Exodus xx. 5. - 

- 22 

xxvii. 37. 

- 

- 168 

Numbers xxiii. 19. 

136 

xviii. 20. 

■ - 

186 

Deuteronomy xxiii. 1. 

- 330 

xvi. 22. 

- 

- 193 

Joshua x. 12. 

190 

xvii. 14. 

- 

- 221 

Judges i. 19. 

- 22 

xviii. 13. 

- 

- 221 

Judges x. 42. " - 

19 

vi. 12. - 

_ 

244 

Judges xi. 24. - 

- 22 

xxviii. 3. 

- 

- 269 

1 Kings ii. 8. 

352 

xii. 8. 

- 

278 

1 Kings xi. 1. - 

- 161 

v. 34. 

- 

- 278 

1 Kings xxii. 23. - 

46 

x. 23. - 

- 

281 

2 Kings xxiii. - 

- 135 

v. 16. 

- 

- 327 

2 Kings xxii. - 

161 

v. 18. - 

- 

374 

2 Kings ii. 11. - 

-257 

ii. 16. &c. 

_ 

- 378 

2 Chronicles xx. 21. 

164 

xxvii. 52, 

&c. - 

- • 3S3 

Psalms. - 

- 159 

iii. 16. 

_ 

416 

Psalm cx. 1. 

161 

Mark xiv. 21. 

_ 

7 

Psalm xxviii. 5. 

- 208 

xi. 30. 

— _ 

24 

Psalm ii. 9. 

- 217 

ix. 45. / 


29 

Psalm xc. 

221 

ix. 47. ' - 

• — 

- 29 

Isaiah xlv. 1. 

- 7 

iv. 12 

• tm 

- 45 

Isaiah liii. 5. - 

- 193 

xiii. 20. 

- 

119 

Isaiah ix. 6. - 

197 

xiii. 13. - 

* - _ 

- 119 

Isaiah xi. 9. - 

- 278 

vii. 31. 

• 

132 

Isaiah liii. 14. - 

379 

xv. 17. - 

- - 

- 168 

Ezekiel xiv. 9. - 

- 346 

xv. 26. 

- 

268 

Ezekiel viii. 4. 

162 

xii. 32. 

- 

242 

Ezekiel ix. 4. - 

- 201 

xvi. 16. - 

- 

- 304 

Daniel iv. 26. 

24 

i. 44. - 

- _ 

- 310 

Ilaggai ii. 7. 

155 

iv. 12. 

- _ 

- 310 

Malachi iii. 20. - 

22 

i. 10. - 

Ml _ 

- 337 

Malachi iv. 2. - 

- 22 

Luke iv. 23. 


- 5 

Malachi iii. 4. - 

161 

i. 38. 


5 

Matthew xxiv. 24. 

- 7 

xxi. 8 


7 

xvi. 29. 

- 7 

ix. 21. 


7 

xxii. 42. - 

7 

xv. 18 - 

- . 

24 

xxi. 25. 

- 24 

xx. 4. 

- 

- 24 

ii. 1. 

37 

xxii. 19. 

• 

18 

ii. 23. - x - 

60 

i. 1. 

- 

88, 120 

xviii. 21. 

- 62 

xxi. 31. 

119 

xix. 12. - - 67, 

91, 94 

i. 2. 

• - 

- 134 

xviii. 15. 

- 92 

xiii. 1. 

- 

135 

xx. 25. 

- 95 

iii. 2. 

• m 

- 135 

xxiii. 9. 

96 

ii. 36. 

• _ 

- 149 

xviii. 21. 

- 99 

iv. 9. 


- 160 

xiii. 52. - 

109 

xxiii. 11. - 

- 

168 

xxiv. 33. 

- 119 

xxii. 38 

_ - 

- 168 

xix. 1. 

- 133 

ii. 32. - 


181 

ii. 22. - 

133 

xxii. 27. - 


- 191 

iv. 13. 

- 134 

i. 35. - 

- «. 

216 

xxi. 7. 

135 

xxiv. 39. - 

. - 

- 369 

xiii. 11. 

- 140 

xxiv. 31. 

— 

- 370 

xviii. 17, 18. - 

141 

ii. 7. 

M — 

- 216 

xix. 12. 

- 143 

John iv. 27. - 


24 

iii. 17 

150 

i. 17. 


- 26 

vi. 9. - 

- 152 

x. 5. 


26 

v 24. 

157 

x. 8. 

• 

- 26 







APPENDIX. 

439 




Page 


Pago 

John xviii. 9. 

- 


67 

Act* xxviii. 31. 

291 

xviii. 16 

- 

67 

xii. 19 

292 

xiv. 2. 

- 

- 

- 102 

viii. 19. - - - 

325 

viii. 13. 

- 


135 

xix. 15. 

325 

ix. 50. 

- 

- 

135 

xv. 29. 

366 

vii. 52. 

- 


135 

xv. 39. - 

373 

xix. 7. 

- 


- 136 

ii. 19. 

384 

xix. 2. 

- 

- 

- 168 

Romans iii. 7. 

33 

xix. 19. 



168 

iii. 5, 7. 

45 

ix. 5 



- 181 

xii. 13. 

103 

xii. 46. 

- 


181 

xi. 13. - 

141 

i. 1. 

- 

- 

- 183,185 

xii. 3. 

281 

i 9. - 



163 

1 Corinthians i. 19. — 

- 33 

ii. 10. 

- 

- 

- 187 

i. 27. 

33 

viii. 56. 

- 


210 

ii. 7. - 

43 

vi. 55. 

- 


-212 

ix. 22. 

47 

ix. 3. 

- 

- 

- 212 

xii. 

- 62 

viii. 5. 

- 


218 

V. 

84 

iii. 5. 


- 

- 220 

xi. 24. - 

- 87 

iii. 8. - 

- 


220 

xv. 33. 

91 

iii. 10. 

- 

- 

% - 220 

xiv. 23. - 

99 

ix. 2. 

- 


221 

xv. 4. - 

101 

ix. 34. 

- 

- 

- 221 

xv. - 

104 

i. 14. 

- 

- 

225 

xv. 29. 

105 

i. 32. - 

- 

337 

xii. 28. - 

140 

xx. 27. 

- 


370 

xiv. 29. 

141 

xx. 17. 

- 


- 370 

xiv. 27. - 

140 

xii. 46. 

- 

- 

181 

xiv. 3. 

141 

i. 9. 

- 

- 

- 183 

vi. 3. 

141 

vi. 55. 

- 


212 

i. 2. 

153 

ix. 3. 

- 

- 

- 212 

xii. - 

175 

Acts xvii. 22. 

- 

- 

19 

iv. 1. 

213 

xiv. 18. 

- 

- 

- 19 

xv. 9. 

269 

xv. 10. 

- 

- 

- 26 

xv. 20. 

293 

xii. 21. 

- 

- 

27 

xv. 36. - 

293 

vii. 1. 

- 

- 

- 39 

ii. 3 

411 

i. 12. - 

_ 


56 

i. 24. 

197 

iv. - 

- 

- 

- 70 

2 Corinthians xii. 16 

33 

xv. 29. 

- 

- 

- 73 

xi. 23. 

33 

v. - 

- 

- 

- 84 

iii. 6. 

52 

xx. 35. 

- 

- 

- 93 

viii. 4. 

89 

iv. 32. 



95 

xi. 6. 

100 

xviii. 24. 

- 


96 

xi. 13. 

107 

xix. 13. 

- 

- 

- 97 

iii. 6. 

140 

i. 15. 

- 

- 

- 104 

iii. 6. - 

211 

xx. 18. 

- 

- 

105 

xii. 2. 

410 

i. 25. 

- 

- 

- 160 

xii. 7 - 

411 

xi. 26. 

- 

- 

- 165 

v. 13. 

411 

xviii. 18. 

- 


197 

x. 10. - 

411 

iv. 35. 

_ 

- 

- 223 

xi. 6. 

411 

xviii. 20. 

- 


237 

Galatians iv. 9. 

26 

xiii. 9. 

- 

- 

- 261 

ii. 2. - 

47 

xxviii. 31. 

- 

- 261 

i. 17. 

62 

i. 18. 

• 

• 

- 269 

iv. 24. 

72 

xix. 15 

- 


272 

i. 11. 

88 

xix. 12. 

- 

- 

- 273 

1. 8. 

89 

xi. 24. 

«p 

- 

289 

iv. 24 

100 


440 


APPENDIX 


Ephesians iv. 24. 

. 

Page 
- 140 

iii. 1. 

_ 

- 195 

ii. 14. - 

- 

366 

iv. 13. 

- 

- 411 

i. 15. 

_ 

- 105 

iv. 9. - 


211 

Philippians iv. 8. 

- 

- 68 

i. 1. 

- 

- 142 

iii. 2. - 

- 

- 366 

i. 15. 


- 366 

Colossians ii. 8. 

_ 

- 37 

i. 23. - 

- 

40 

i. 23. 


- 89 

i. 26. - 

. 

- 168 

ii. 9. 

- 

- 169 

i. 23. - 

- 

- 247 

i. 24. 

_ 

- 411 

1 Thessalonians ii. 7. 

_ 

33 

2 Thessalonians ii. 11. 

_ 

- 46 

ii. 2. 

_ 

- 116 

1 Timothy vi. 20. 

- 

- 37 

iii. 16. - 

- 

- 40 

iii. 13. 

- 

- 73 

ii. 9. 

- 

- 95 

iii. 3. 

- 

- 101 

vi. 3. - 

- 

129 

i. 3. 

- 

- 260 

iii. 13. 

- 

142 

L 15. 

- 

- 269 


Page 


1 Timothy iv. 8. 327 

Epistle to Titus i. 7. - - 90 

Hebrews xiii. 7. - - - 107 

xii. 24. - - - 20S 

x. 22. - - 213 

i. 3. - - - 216 

ix. 13. 228 

x. 22. - - - 232 

Epistle of James v. 12. - - 157 

ii. 15. - 287 

1st Epistle of Peter ii. 2. - - 33 

iii. 3. - - 95 

i. 20. - 155 

i. 2. - 208 

iii. 15. - 276 

iii. 13. - - 281 

iii. 16. - 327 

2d Epistle of Peter iii. 14. - - 94 

ii. 4. - - 215 

Epistles of John—1st Ep. ii. 12. - 105 

$ 3d Ep. 10. - 106 

1st Ep. i. 5. - 181 
1st Ep. i. 7. - 282 

1st Ep. iv. 3. - 366 
Judever. 6. - 215 

Revelation xii. 5. - - - 216 

xii. 13. - 216 

xix. 13. - - - 217 








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